Highly addictive space simulator. There is a very high learning curve. Even after over 100 hours, there are many things I have not yet done, or learned to do. I've barely scratched the surface and I can see the potential for hundreds or thousands more hours of play. The game takes a while to learn. Expect that, and don't expect to jump right in and be dogfighting or flying a battleship on your first day.

If you have the time and energy to invest in Elite, the game is phenomenal. You can do a huge variety of things, ranging from mapping uncharted star systems, mining, fighting or helping other players, fighting pirates, fighting aliens, ranking up in the military, researching new technologies, upgrading and outfitting ships, surveying undiscovered planets or driving a rover around on said planets. Each of those career paths has many sub-paths to try out. For example, as a miner you can surface mine asteroids with mining lasers, you can blast chunks off of them with an abrasion blaster, you can use missiles to blow out subsurface deposits, or you can use seismic charges to actually blow up the whole asteroid and get to the core of minerals inside of it. All of these methods require different types of equipment. Or you can drive around on a planet and blast rocky outcroppings in your rover.

The game's world is a fairly scientifically accurate model of the real Milky Way Galaxy. That's 400 billion (with a b) stars. There are trillions of planets, moons and planetoids to find and explore. Less than 0.1% of the galaxy has been explored. There are space stations, asteroid belts, planetary rings, many types of worlds and moons, nebulae, black holes, exotic life forms, alien crash sites, alien ruins, and more to find explore out there. Right now, you can only land on planets with no atmosphere (mostly rock and metal worlds).

Compatible with VR. Looks stunning in my Oculus Rift S. You don't need a flight stick to play, but if you sink a few dozen hours in and end up liking the game, you'll probably want one. Online is required for the game, but it's possible to play solo in your own instance so you won't encounter others if you are worried about getting killed. Or you can play with others in the persistent online universe.

Overall I highly recommend it. It can be a rough start, the first 10-20 hours are often punctuated by a "what the hell am I doing?" feeling. But once you get over those, prepare to have your life consumed...