My first night playing E:D my reaction was one of bleak disappointment. I’ve learned to manage my expectations of games that come with a lot of hype but that doesn’t always do much to soften the blow, especially when we are dealing with one of my favorite genres. I kept thinking, “I waited 30 years and paid $60 for Euro Truck in Space? Seriously?” Unfortunately many players have never moved past this stage. The basic gameplay at first does seem only to consist of navigating menus, watching some warp animations, trying not to crash while trying to park, repeat.

And yet, while I kept repeating this thought to myself, I kept playing. In fact, the more I played, the more I wanted to keep playing. At the time I could not identify what was happening. Shouldn’t I be packing this game up and dismissing it as another instance of hype without substance?

What I realize now is that the game was operating on me on an unconscious level. Tiny details from every corner of the experience combined with flawless internal consistency to build an emergent narrative structure somewhere inside of me that I was not even aware of until I was already a part of it. I’ll give you the four examples that, in order, brought me around to recognizing how huge and emergent the E:D universe is and how immersed in it I had already become:

When you request docking clearance at a facility, they give it to you in the form of a spot assignment and a timer. So there I am trying to park my clanky old VW Rabbit of a spaceship on this backwater industrial platform, scraping it against the walls, generally not succeeding- and the timer runs out. And I get a communication from the facility. Move along, your spot is forfeit, you’ve been assessed fines and you won’t be welcome back until they are paid.

A few hours later, I’m hurtling across a solar system towards a facility orbiting a gas giant. I’m cruising at maybe and average of 150c. The planet is between me and the facility and as the gassy behemoth grows in my viewport I notice something- my speed is dropping. I haven’t throttled down. What the hell? Several more runs and my suspicions are confirmed: the closer you come to gravitic bodies, the less you are able to break the speed of light. Furthermore, clip too close to a sun and it will anchor you, causing an emergency drop into real space and a seriously life-threatening situation.

Much later, still playing, I’m running a courier mission to a huge station in a densely populated area of the galaxy. To get to the entrance port I need to fly around to the nightside of beautiful M-class gem...and I notice a twinkle in the corner of my viewport. I activate head look and turn my gaze that direction. And there it is. The nightside of the planet is aglow with a sparkling network of living cities. It took my breath away.

Here is where things really got serious. I go online checking supply and demand stats and I make a handful of runs carrying foodstuffs from this certain fringe base just within exploitation radius of the Federation. Well it turns out a lot of other commanders got the same idea, and the base’s food supplies are gutted. Next thing I know, I’m returning for me- and someone tries to interdict my ship into real space. Which is terrifying. I find an escape vector and make it through safely, only to find my scanner alight with “conflict zones.” Messages start pinging into my comms. Things like You should not have come back here and There’s nothing left here except blood and We won’t let it end this way, we will die free. When I finally make it to the facility and land, I find out that a different minor faction unique to the base has taken over operation. In other words, it would seem, faced with starvation, they staged a coup, and ignited a civil war with the Feds. Incredible.

No one, certainly not the game, explained these things to me. These are things that I learned about over the course of my journeys. The game is absolutely rife with these sorts of details: available, amazing, and yet existing without fanfare or gimmick. They are simply part of the way the universe works. By the end of these events I realized I had left my Euro Truck impressions far behind. In fact, I had become thoroughly immersed. I felt like I was truly sailing the vastness between the stars, one small part of an enormous world- a world far huger than I will ever be, that exists regardless of my interaction. This recognition was nothing less than humbling.


Which brings me to my next point. E:D is not a roleplaying in the sense we usually think of these days. You accrue reputation levels in various ways, but there are no character stats, skill trees, experience points, or anything like that. And yet this game is easily the most complete RP I’ve had the pleasure of playing in a very long time. So how can that be? It happens because the game is almost complete indifferent to the player.

It may seem counterintuitive, but the result is that all meaning has to come from within. This is no Elder Scrolls, no one is going to tell you you’re here to save the universe. And to be honest, in the games where someone does say something like that, I don’t feel special. In fact the RP is largely broken because everyone gets that line. In E:D your decisions are yours alone. And personally, I have watched CMDR Paklo develop a character organically when faced with the many decisions that are technically easy in game but they are difficult in a subjective moral or ethical sense. For example, Paklo refuses to participate in the slave trade. From a practical standpoint slaves are just a number on a spreadsheet in terms of gameplay. But over time I’ve become invested in Paklo’s path through life- and Paklo will not trade slaves.

The world is emergent in such a way that these sorts of decisions happen on a much larger scale as well. I’ll give an example. Having become disillusioned with the Federation I recently pledged my fealty to the Imperial Princess Aisling (aka Space Khaleesi), an outspoken critic of the Empire’s historical condoning of the slave trade. A group of commanders, of their own volition, have banded together at various spots along trade routes known to move slaves. From these spots they interdict ships, scan their cargo, and if they are carrying slaves, destroy them. This activity does not occur at the game’s behest. It is 100% organic roleplaying at its finest.

So to conclude on the merits of the game alone, without addressing Frontier’s business ethics- 9.75/10, the highest number rating I have ever given, absolutely essential.
No Drama, Just Reviews

*steam awards*