Elite 4 - Development

Development

Elite 4 was to be the third sequel to 1984's Elite, a game that Braben and his former associate, Ian Bell, wrote for the BBC Micro computer, and ported to most other platforms of the day. The first two sequels, Frontier: Elite II and Frontier: First Encounters, were released in the 1990s, the second of which led to an acrimonious falling out of Braben and Bell over use of copyright and royalties. David Braben had stated production of Elite 4 is ready to begin after the release of The Outsider. During a lecture in June, 2009, Braben confirmed that Elite 4 would be available on multiple console platforms, as well as on PC.

In November 2006, GameSpot conducted an interview with Braben, where the subject of Elite 4 arose. Braben revealed that Elite 4 began and ceased development as an MMORPG in 2000, abandoned due to the immaturity of technology for online play. When asked if the game would ever be released, Braben responded "We will do Elite 4 after Outsider, so it will benefit from everything we've done in Outsider." Braben repeated this claim in a Game Theory Show podcast in August 2007.

During an interview with Computer and Video Games in September 2007, Braben revealed that Frontier Developments is currently working on new technologies required to deliver the game, and has been for two years. At the Gamecity International Interactive Entertainment Festival 2007 event in Nottingham UK, it was revealed that Braben and Frontier Developments are aiming to have Elite 4 released for the current generation of gaming consoles and PC. Also at the event, Braben, during an interview about courses teaching game development in the UK, revealed that Frontier Developments is recruiting staff to work on their current projects, including Elite 4.

At the 2008 Game Developers Conference in Germany, David Braben hinted that an announcement regarding the game's release would come in 2008. Braben stated that the new version "would certainly need a better interface, or at least one which is easier to use for modern gamers."

In 2009, the game was said to be under development. In an interview with the BBC to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the original game, Braben confirmed that the game was still in development, saying, "We'd be mad not to go back to the world of Elite and I'm very excited about it," and adding that it would be released only "when it's ready." Supposed platforms are the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

In May 2010, Braben told Eurogamer that there had been staff changes, but that "our commitment to the game is as strong as ever."

However, Elite 4 has been removed from the 'in-development' section of Frontier Developments — making the current status of its development unclear. In addition, Frontier Developments no longer has any links to the website for the game.

At the twenty-fifth annual Game Developers Conference, Braben presented a post-mortem discussing the development of Elite. The final question in the Q&A section asked if Elite 4 was still on the drawing board and he replied "yes, it would be a tragedy for it not to be."

In November 2012, Frontier Developments announced that the game was now named Elite: Dangerous, and would be funded via Kickstarter. The Kickstarter project remains open for 60 days, and rewards include a digital copy of the game, standard and premium boxed copies, a T-shirt, and access to alpha and beta test versions of the game.