• News

Elite Dangerous: Odyssey dev diary shows upgraded planetary surfaces & 'light atmospheres'

With the ability to traverse planets on foot, Frontier Developments released a dev diary exploring the upgrades going into planetary surfaces and exploration.

TJ Denzer

August 18, 2020 7:52 AM

3

There was already so much detail in the universe of Elite Dangerous, being able to explore the far corners of the Milky Way. Frontier Developments has always packed vast and breathtaking visuals into the game, but with Elite Dangerous: Odyssey and the ability to leave ships to explore on foot, the team now finds itself focused on refining the finer parts of its beautiful expanses. A new developer diary takes a deep dive into planetary surfaces, ‘light atmospheres,’ and new planetary resource discovery and collection.

Frontier Developments released the first Elite Dangerous: Odyssey developer diary on the game’s YouTube Channel on August 18, 2020. Titled “One Giant Leap,” this diary indeed takes a jump off the ships to speak to the creation of scope in Elite Dangerous: Odyssey, of both the ship you came from and the planets you’ll be exploring. New ‘light atmosphere’ conditions have been built with upgrades to planetary surfaces. Rocky worlds look craggier and the terrain looks more beautifully jagged. New ice planets also feature terrain and formations unique to the nature of the world. Much has been improved with the fact that players will now be able to get up close and personal with it.

Elite Dangerous: Odyssey also goes into a little of what you can do when you’re down on the surface, exploring worlds. There’s a new Sampling Tool coming to the game that will allow players to take genetic samples of undiscovered flora and bring it to star ports and planet ports to record for various rewards, giving incentive to players to explore any and all worlds and be the first to discover the secrets therein.

Elite Dangerous: Odyssey has always looked like a fascinating prospect ever since we first learned we’d be getting out of vehicles to see what the worlds we fly across have for us. As this is the first numbered entry of developer diaries, expect many more going into further details about the game ahead of its launch in Early 2021.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.