Elite: Dangerous Legendary Edition for PS4 and XONE is the fourth installment in a series of open-world space simulators. The game was created by Frontier Developments a team led by David Braben, who had produced all the previous installments.
### Legendary Edition
Legendary Edition came out in the form of a blu-ray disc. Apart from the base game, the disc includes all the gameplay improvements made since the release, as well as an expansion pack Horizons, which above all, introduces an ability to land spacecraft on planets without their atmospheres, in order to explore their surfaces using an on-board rover. Apart from this significant extension of the player’s possibilities to interact with the virtual environment, Horizons enriches the contents of the base game with a module for character creation, and gives an opportunity to invite other players to explore space together, aboard the same ship.
### Plot
Elite: Dangerous is set in distant future, when humanity colonized countless planetary systems. Three superpowers constitute a prevailing force in this universe: the Empire, the Federation, and the Alliance. However, these factions do not control the entire inhabited space nor the majority of it. Outside areas of their influence, anarchy and lawlessness are commonplace, but potential profits that can be made here are often worth the risk.
A simple concept underlies the experience at the beginning, the player receives a small ship and a little bit of cash; then the player ventures into the Milky Way, which was faithfully recreated in the game all the extraterrestrial objects of which humanity knows and four hundred billion star systems were included here. The developer made use of the current knowledge of astronomy, as well as retained the scale of objects and laws of physics.
It is entirely dependant on the player in what direction will the experience go. The player can decide to become a space merchant, a smuggler, a pirate, a bounty hunter, an assassin, a discoverer, a miner, or another explorer that mixes these kinds of activity together in a way dependant on the player.
### Mechanics
The game features a complex flight simulation in zero gravity, as well as good mechanics behind space combat. A merchant’s career is equally interesting. As a result of both the player’s actions and the virtual world’s simulation procedures, the galaxy incessantly undergoes changes affecting the economy, security, or the powers and interrelations between minor factions in each inhabited system. This influences the prices and amounts of goods, types of available missions, the pirate activity, or conflicts in space the players can be involved in these. The pilots’ participation affects the balance of powers in the galaxy.
In daily news available on each station, the player can learn about the most important events in the galaxy – both those caused by the players and others prepared by the developer. Those who decide to become a discoverer and leave the civilized area, have billions of stars, planets, nebulas or black holes to find. Long and dangerous expeditions into the unknown earn the player specific profits (apart from satisfaction and fame) in the form of high rewards for obtaining information on the most interesting objects in space.
### Technical aspects
Elite: Dangerous Legendary Edition for PS4 and XONE is a hundred per cent online game, set in one dynamic universe for all the players. Within this world however, several game modes were included. Open play is the most basic mode, offering the open-world multiplayer experience. Apart from that, one can try out the private group mode, and a solo experience, which does not involve any interactions with other players. The system of these gameplay components is flexible, as the player can switch between the modes, unless they have a bounty on their head. The players using different gaming systems share the same galaxy, so they can influence the same events, although they do not interact with one another directly.
