Elite Dangerous: Squeezing 400 Billion Star Systems on Xbox One Was Tough, No Corners Were Cut

Frontier Developments’ Elite: Dangerous will be out on Xbox One today but the fact that it’s coming to the console is amazing, especially given its size and scale. How hard was it to fit all of it on Microsoft’s console?

GamingBolt spoke to Gary Richards, senior producer for the Xbox One version, who talked about the one technical feature that he was most excited about on the console.

“I remember reading tweets before launch saying a console version of Elite Dangerous should be ‘impossible.’ Well, it wasn’t impossible, but squeezing 400 billion star systems and a fully-working, full-sized replica of our Milky Way onto Xbox One was a monumental challenge. That said, for me the greatest achievement was both technical AND creative.

“Elite Dangerous is a deep game with a control scheme designed to make you feel you’re in the cockpit of a real starship in 3301. On PC or Mac those controls can be mapped all over your keyboard or custom flight stick, but on Xbox One we always have the same number of buttons. We worked hard on our new gamepad UI and controls to make it feel natural and responsive. Our team managed to bring Elite Dangerous to Xbox One without cutting any technical corners, AND without cutting any creative corners. That, to me, is exciting.”

Though Elite: Dangerous may have severe issues on the first day of launch, because this is usually the case with online titles in the beginning, but it should be worth the wait. Thoughts on the Xbox One version? Let us know in the comments.