David Braben Announces Elite: Dangerous via Kickstarter

David Braben, the main developer behind Elite: Frontier, announces that he is working on a new title in the series, called Elite: Dangerous, which is being currently funded via the Kickstarter crowd funding service and will use the same core mechanics as its predecessor.

The studio behind the new game is Frontier Developments, which has worked before on titles like Kinectimals, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, Wallace & Gromit franchise and LostWinds, a platformer.

Elite: Dangerous will be a space-based, fully 3D, multiplayer-oriented simulation that uses an open-world structure and will include a lot of procedurally generated content.

As in all other Elite titles, gamers will start off with a small ship and a limited amount of money to equip it and then they have full freedom to choose a career that can range from trading to piracy, to law enforcement.

The new spin is that players will be able to work with other players and against them as they try to process through Elite: Dangerous. Braben claims to have a system that will allow his game to avoid lobbies, while giving gamers a measure of control over the players they allow into their own game world.

The game is still in the early stages of development and Braben has not offered a video for the new Elite or any in-game screenshots.

On the official Kickstarter page the developer says, “Up to now Elite has been worked upon by a small team as a ‘skunk-works’ activity in the background as availability permits. Nevertheless, we have been preparing; laying the technology and design foundations for when the time is right. And that time is now.”

Elite: Dangerous is set to launch only on the PC during March 2014.

The developers are looking to get 1.25 million pounds, which is about 2 million dollars (1.55 million Euro) and at the moment they have more than 630 backers.