Elite Dangerous is the greatest space sim. It is not a game, It's a lifestyle choice

Elite Dangerous: Odyssey and Beyond – A Covert Operative’s Review

Elite Dangerous continues to impress as a living galaxy built not just on size, but on depth. With the latest expansions and ongoing tweaks, the game still nails that feeling of insignificance and opportunity that space demands. But more importantly, it lets you live the life you choose. For me, that life is covert.

I’ve fully embraced a stealth-based playstyle. I’m not here to be a trader or bounty hunter, I sneak across barren worlds under cover of darkness, cutting power, assassinating targets, and stealing data from habitation units. It’s rewarding in ways that crash site looting or irregular marker grinding never could be. There’s a beautiful tension in evading guards, hacking terminals, and slipping away before your suit’s battery dies. It’s not efficient, but it feels earned, and that’s the whole point.

One thing I particularly admire is how Elite doesn’t hold your hand. The “suck it and see” method of discovery is alive and well here, and I love it. If you want to learn something, you’ll probably fail at it the first time. Then maybe the second. But you’ll figure it out, because trial and error is baked into the DNA of this game, just like it is in real life. And when you're truly stuck, the Elite community is out there, knowledgeable, passionate, and always willing to share what they’ve discovered. It’s one of the strongest player communities out there, and it’s part of what makes this universe feel alive.

I also appreciate that everything isn’t just handed to you under one roof. You want a better mod? Great, go find the right engineer, figure out their access requirements, fly halfway across the galaxy, and then maybe you’ll get what you’re looking for. It’s realistic. In real life, you wouldn’t find a rare car part sitting on a shelf in your local garage, you’d probably drive three towns over, dig through scrap, or deal with some shady bloke behind a warehouse. That same dynamic here makes the hunt feel grounded, and the win more satisfying.

There are a few areas where I think Elite could expand in a way that would deepen this already-rich world:

Station interiors need love. Apartments should offer storage, a workbench, and maybe even a research terminal. I’m talking months-long or even year-long projects that yield incremental, unique results. Maybe you finally push a shield module to recharge at 200%, and then you can sell that under your own in-game brand. It adds long-tail gameplay and reinforces the effort/reward loop that Elite already excels at.

I want mission variety to be taken to the next level. What’s there now is solid, but new mission categories could breathe fresh life into career paths. Introduce scenarios where players must coordinate multiple objectives, hacking, sabotage, retrieval, power management, and spread them across a large settlement to encourage real co-op team play. We already sneak down to settlements and one team goes for the reactor while the other heads to disable the alarms and settlement defences for a clean getaway. What about all these maintenance hatches? instead of just purging the atmo, or disabling a turret, why not have other "vulnerabilities" too? Like pulling a fuse to destroy a reactor?

Speaking of in-game mechanics, there’s huge potential to deepen interaction. Take something as routine as reactivating a power generator. Why not make it modular? Insert the regulator manually, sure, but maybe you need multiple. Perhaps you need to enter a code sequence, monitor RPM, temperature, voltage alignment, and keep input/output within safe thresholds. Let’s throw in circuit breakers, pressure valves, maybe a need to weld a broken conduit or cut open a sealed access hatch. These could be expanded into mini-systems, simple enough to grasp, complex enough to master.

Ship management and engineering could also benefit from the same philosophy. Let players program module behaviour with in-game scripting. Write protocols to reroute power when shields drop, automate limpets, or run stealth modes dynamically. It's the kind of depth that fits the spirit of Elite perfectly—player-driven, optional, and infinitely satisfying for the ones who go that far.

And yes, buy orders on carriers. Need to be thing. Carriers are floating stations. Let them behave like it.

Graphically, while I absolutley respect the commitment to Elite’s iconic aesthetic, I do think it’s time to push the envelope. Games like Star Citizen and Spacebourne 2 are setting new standards in realism, and Elite could benefit from bringing its interiors, lighting, and planetary detail into a new generation—without losing the cold, hard elegance it’s known for. Don't let it be a failure like Eve Online, where they promise atmospheric flight, player owned stations, ambualtion (walking in stations) and then fail to deliver Although in all fairness, Elite has practically achieved all those features where Eve has failed. Miserably.

Despite my ideas, Elite Dangerous still stands as one of the few games that respects the intelligence and commitment of its players. It doesn’t ask how long you’ve played, but how well you’ve learned. It’s a game for thinkers, explorers, and risk-takers. It takes time, finesse, skill, patience, and a lot of trial and error. Not a game for the snowflake generation who want everything now without any effort, because in a world of instant gratification, that alone makes it something rare. It give the player an opportunity for escapisme from real life by providing the requirement to think about what you are doing and allowing you to immerse yourself in the simulation. On top of that, I literally went and purchased a HTC Vive Pro 2 VR headset for this game, with the wireless untethered add on, rhino x56 controller and pedals, which subsequently multiplied the experience 100 fold!

I don’t want fast travel. I don’t want shortcuts. Even the lack of an autopilot is awesome. I want a galaxy where I earn my place. And Elite still delivers that better than anyone else.

It's pretty good except for how overly dumb and grindy getting materials for engineering is. I dont see why i cant buy tungsten or carbon or whatever from a guy it makes zero sense. i shouldnt have to spend hours collecting materials to upgrade a ship. Its already enough of a chore to do all stuff to unlock an engineer in the first place.