Elite: Dangerous standard beta kicks off, bringing price of entry down to £50

Frontier’s Elite: Dangerous can now be played for a price resembling the cost of a normal console release.

That’s despite the fact it’s a PC game. But still, the now live 50 standard beta is significantly cheaper than the 200 alpha from earlier in the year or the 100 premium beta from April.

There’s still the option of pre-ordering the 35 standard game due out later this year.

New to the standard beta are two new playable ships, an even larger play area spanning 55 star systems and 29,000 cubic lightyears, player-to-player communication (both text and voice), fuel consumption, a new docking computer and private group play.

Said Frontier: The increased greater volume of Beta 1 space has an increased variety of celestial bodies, trading economies and star ports, and plays host to a large number of additional features and enhancements which together provide a vastly greatly enhanced, richer gameplay experience over the whole expanded volume of space.”

Frontier boss David Braben expressed some regret about his studio’s pricing plan for the game last month.