The corona crisis has caused a further shift in the world of computer games. Developer Frontier announced in the official forum that the "Next Era" in Elite: Dangerous should only begin in early 2021.
This update is about: Next Era is the next major paid DLC to be released in December 2020. Nothing is officially known yet about the content. In the coming months, the developers want to reveal what exactly is in this update.
These are the reasons: Frontier cites the "uncertain times" in the corona crisis as the reason for the shift. For example, the developers of Elite: Dangerous should have revised their long-term roadmap given contact restrictions and homework. As a result, Next Era can only appear in early 2021. Frontier places the safety and health of its employees at the top.
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What can Next Era be?
Officially, as I said, there is still no information about what innovations the next addon for Elite: Dangerous has in store. According to the developer, it is a "dramatic expansion of the gameplay" and introduces "important new features".
The players hope: Fans are hoping that Next Era could be the space legs that were announced years ago. The feature is intended to allow players to get out of their spaceship and walk around on stations and planets, for example.
This possibility is supported by a leak that claims to have revealed a real attack on Star Citizen in Next Era. According to this, the fourth season supposedly contains space legs, first-person shooter gameplay and Thargoid aliens outside of their spaceships.
But it could also be very different: Frontier had previously communicated that the Space Legs would be one of the latest innovations in Elite: Dangerous as soon as all other important systems were in place. So it is possible that further features will be integrated before the space legs finally arrive.
Fleet carriers still on course
The postponement of Next Era has no effect on the planned next update, which integrates the long-announced fleet carrier into Elite: Dangerous, according to Frontier. The patch is supposed to scheduled to appear in June 2020. A beta has recently been held, with another test run to follow in May.
