Elite: Dangerous – Premium Beta Begins

Frontier Developments plc (AIM: FDEV), the leading independent game developer with studios in Cambridge, UK and Halifax, Nova Scotia, today reaches the next milestone in the development of its forth-coming Elite: Dangerous title.

The Premium Beta phase starts today with all the major features that have been added through the four Alpha phases. The immediate focus is on testing the systems and servers with a step change in numbers using a re-balanced game based on feedback and information from the recent Alpha 4 build.

More than 10,000 additional people, a number which is growing daily, are today able to earn credits to upgrade their ships and weapons by blazing their own trading, piracy and bounty hunting trail though five star systems covering a 200 cubic light year volume of space. There are a range of different economies and governments, ranging from Anarchy to Federal Democracies to Corporate-run systems.

All this action takes place around ten stars in five star systems that make up part of the Boötes constellation (when viewed from Earth) and set within the 400 billion star systems of the Elite: Dangerous Milky Way galaxy.

The Premium Beta, which includes a lifetime Expansion pack, is available now for new customers. Customers who have already pre-ordered the standard Beta and the Expansion pack only need spend an additional £15 to start playing the Premium Beta today.

David Braben, CEO of Frontier, said: “The start of the Premium Beta phase is another exciting moment in our development – from today we have over 10,000 additional people playing the game. This is a significant and sensible step-change with which to test the next level of scaling of our cloud-based systems and servers as we move towards the very large numbers of people we will eventually have playing.

I once again would like to thank all those who played such an important role in the Alpha phase, which is now at an end. We’re looking forward to continuing to collaborate with the expanded community during the beta phase as we deliver greater scale, richer content and ever higher quality.”

For more info, visit http://elite.frontier.co.uk/