Quote:On Thursday, console players of the seven-year-old space sim adventure Elite Dangerous were dealt a massive blow. Instead of getting word that the series' 2021 Odyssey DLC expansion would finally arrive on console, they were instead told that the game's versions on Xbox and PlayStation would no longer receive any substantial gameplay updates, DLC or otherwise.

Frontier Developments director David Braben broke the news by saying that the game has had two completely different codebases in operation for some time: one for PC, which supports Odyssey, and one for consoles. This week, Frontier made the decision to "focus on a single codebase" so the studio can "move forward with the story of the game."

As a result, existing Xbox and PlayStation owners of the game will only receive "critical updates" from here on out, while all "new content" will land exclusively on PC.

In an early 2021 announcement, Braben told series fans that work on Odyssey's console version was ongoing, albeit delayed by issues stemming from the pandemic. Even so, he set expectations for an eventual console release (at the time, "fall 2021") by describing "a focus on making Odyssey as incredible as it can possibly be for all our Commanders, regardless of their platform."