Elite: Dangerous will have 100 billion star systems

Elite: Dangerous will live up to its precursor's reputation for truly huge game worlds, David Braben has promised.

Speaking with PCGamesN, Braben said Elite: Dangerous is set in a randomly generated Milky Way with over 100 billion star systems, including our very own Sol.

Each system can have up to 100 objects in it, leading to plenty of opportunities for the player - a "truly giant galaxy of vast numbers".

Unfortunately, you won't be able to land on these planets at launch; that feature is coming later. Instead, you'll be doing a lot of flying around, with Braben saying this aspect of gameplay is more like the original Elite than its successors.

"I think in many respects it's more comparable to Frontier in terms of the way the galaxy works, that sort of thing. But in terms of the way you fly it's much closer to Elite. We're going to have Newtonian physics," he said.

"But the way that we apply the fly-by-wire layer over the top of makes the combat feel really visceral and seat-of-the-pants, rather than [as in Frontier] jousting at huge distances."

Braben said Dangerous is set 50 years after Frontier: First Encounters, so kicks off about 3300 AD, and will feature the Thargoids in some capacity.

Elite: Dangerous was successfully Kickstarted and is expected on PC in March 2014 and Mac a few months after that.