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Space Commanders rebel as Elite:Dangerous kills offline mode

Frontier cops an epic kicking in its own forums ahead of December revival

Elite:Dangerous, the revival of classic eight-bit space trading game Elite, won't have a single-player offline mode and space commanders are mad as hell.

Frontier Developments, the game's developer, revealed the demise of offline mode in a recent newsletter in which it argues “A fully offline experience would be unacceptably limited and static compared to the dynamic, ever unfolding experience we are delivering.”

As games.on.net notes, that's a position well and truly at odds with the crowdfunded game's Kickstarter spiel, which says “... it will be possible to have a single player game without connecting to the galaxy server. You won't get the features of the evolving galaxy (although we will investigate minimising those differences) and you probably won't be able to sync between server and non-server”.

Removal of the offline mode has sparked a colossal 4,700 comment (and rising) thread on Frontier's forums. One comes from the game's producer, Michael Brookes, who explained the decision as follows:

“As mentioned in the newsletter thread the game has changed a lot since the initial kickstarter. One of the biggest changes is the importance of the the offline component to manage the galaxy and interactions. This isn't something we can translate into an offline experience as we'd effectively have to make a new game world - we couldn't share the same world and that throws out the intent for a shared universe.”

Frontier says the game is still on track for a December 16 release. For those who still want it. ®

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