In the latest Elite Dangerous: Odyssey dev diary, you get a longer look at the all-new FPS combat. Previously all we had to go by was a short teaser shown at the Game Awards, as well as the dev diaries released throughout the year, which focused on mission design and overall gameplay possibilities. This video actually shows you some of the ol' ratatat, and how it fits into Elite Dangerous on the whole. Frontier emphasises that suddenly finding yourself in the role of a squishy human, devoid of the safety a spaceship offers, is going to "force a mentality shift from bold and daring star pilot to vulnerable on-foot troop."
You'll be fighting with and against ships, SRVs and of course other humans, and combat may start or end in space, taking you back to the original Elite Dangerous experience. "Embracing ships, SRVs and on-foot troops in the same combat space allows us to not just have people shooting each other, but it also opens up opportunities for us to have more tactical gameplay," Lead Designer Gareth Hughes says. All weapons fit into the three categories plasma weapons, laser weapons and kinetic weapons. There are a lot of interesting details to the sound of combat gameplay, as expected from a studio renowned for its sound design.
The other diaries showed how the team at Frontier aim to translate the game's dedication to detail to the new experience, for example by making sure the size difference between your character and your ship, which you could never actually look at from the outside before, or by scanning planetary flora. We now also know you can disembark at outposts, space ports and planet ports and immediately find missions to take on there chat to NPCs or go shopping. You will also be able to move from planet to planet without getting into your ship first. All three diaries are really worth watching, and they make a good case for Elite Dangerous possibly becoming the better Mass Effect Andromeda if it all comes together—that's definitely not a comparison I thought I'd be making.
Elite Dangerous: Odyssey releases early 2021, and is available as standalone expansion or a bundle with alpha and beta access as well as the soundtrack.
