A tale of two space sims, or how Elite: Dangerous is about to overtake Star Citizen

Elite: Dangerous revealed some heretofore unknown features of their upcoming Horizons expansion, and it looks like the game will be doing things Star Citizen has been promising for a while. According to Frontier Developments, Elite Dangerous: Horizons will add planetary landings, ship-launched fighters, cooperative crew modes, and a Commander Creator to render in-game human avatars. Updates to the main game will add new flyable ships, more enemies to fight, and a CQC mode that will concentrate on competitive team matches separate from the campaign. Elite Dangerous: Horizons will launch on PC later this year.

Way over on the other side of the open-galaxy space sim arena, Star Citizen tootles along with its $89 million in pledged funds, but Derek Smart continues to be a thorn in the project’s side. Not content to just threaten legal action, Smart had his lawyer draft and file a letter to the developers of Star Citizen accusing them of lying about the state of the game’s development. Roberts Space Industries was quick to respond with their own snark-filled letter letting Derek Smart know exactly where he could go. Smart continued his accusations and raised a new one – that RSI was beginning a round of layoffs to get their ballooning budget under control. While RSI has not officially responded to the latest from Derek Smart, it was confirmed that the ex-RSI people Smart named in his blog did leave the studio for undisclosed reasons.

What does this mean for Star Citizen? Hey, that Elite Dangerous: Horizons expansion looks pretty good.