Elite: Dangerous players finally grew legs on May 19th as the new expansion Odyssey appeared. For six years, the ability to get out of the spaceship, walk around and complete first-person shooter missions has been one of the most requested features.
Now there is a lot of trouble on Steam: The Player Reviews from Odyssey are in the red – only 34 percent of the approximately 2,300 reviewers give a thumbs up. The average rating from fans is »largely negative«.
What are the reasons?
After the alpha test phase of Odyssey, the DLC started shortly afterwards as a full version on Steam. However, little had changed from the much-criticized Alpha.
Players sometimes feel that they are not being taken seriously. In protest, many fans have therefore given the user note “Early Access” for Elite: Dangerous on Steam. Besides all the negative reviews, of course.
The new look should really please: In addition to the new first-person perspective, new social hubs and many first-person missions, Odyssey is also making major changes to the graphics. For example, a new planetary technology calculates the atmospheric composition and adjusts the lighting accordingly. Overall, the graphics have been modernized and improved a lot.
This causes performance problems for many players: Especially in first-person shooter missions on planetary bases or in the social hubs, even strong PCs sometimes struggle with frame rates of under 60 FPS. player Clixifer describes his experience like this:
“Unfortunately, the performance has sunk into the ground … Optimization not available … apparently everything is being rendered, even if it is out of sight. Definitely no purchase recommendation with a medium / poor PC!”
The UI also attracts criticism: Developer Frontier Developments gave the user interface of Elite: Dangerous an all-round treatment: To the chagrin of experienced veterans, galaxy maps, terminals, station screens and more are now completely different. This also repeatedly meets with criticism on Steam, such as from users Nirvash, which we quote here in excerpts:
“[…] UI interaction partly with mouse and partly only with keyboard (why is that?). Buy equipment and create, save and use a new loadout via the terminal by means of character configuration (Why so complicated when you can also control the whole thing via the inventory?). I find the UI overview in space, when you want to play with friends, very confusing. […]”
In the video you can see what the new Odyssey expansion for Elite: Dangerous is all about:
16:54
Elite Dangerous: Odyssey – Space Sim becomes a first person shooter
Some defend Odyssey
Other users counter the polyphonic criticism that one rather not play on patch day should. There are also numerous players who prefer the new UI to the old one. Many reviewers also believe that Frontier will get the issues under control soon and that Elite: Odyssey will be more fun.
In fact, Frontier has too two hotfixes have already been rolled out
This is what the author thinks: Fan boy and journalist don’t go well together, at least when they’re in the same skin. I really like elite, but I have to admit that critics are right here. After the alpha, it should have been clear to Frontier that Odyssey still needed work. The Shitstorm on Steam is now the receipt for the problematic release.Personally, I don’t have any problems with the UI that go beyond getting used to it. I’m just very disappointed that despite the Ryzen 7 3700X and Geforce RTX 2070 S, I sometimes stumble through the ego missions in less than 50 FPS. Hotfixes do provide relief, but by then the child had already drifted into space. Incidentally, I find everything more beautiful than ever, the new lighting exactly meets my taste.
I am patient and hope that the developers achieve decent performance in the end. Then I can finally stretch my legs, lean back, relax and play Odyssey, almost as if it were Star Citizen.
