A couple of Elite Dangerous’ key developers have shared what to expect from the game’s update 14 in a recent interview.
Speaking with PC Gamer, senior producer Samantha Marsh stated “As we move towards Update 14, and the Aftermath, we’ll be really escalating the Thargoid threat, to the extent commanders have not seen before.”
Update 13 was quite monumental for Elite Dangerous, as it concluded the game’s Azimuth Saga storyline which ran for almost two years.
Marsh continues to state “I think everyone can see that bad things are coming. But the Aftermath will continue to kick that into higher and higher gear, and we’re really excited to see exactly [how] everyone deals with it”, before teasing “And it’s definitely safe to say the galaxy won’t be the same.”
In terms of how the story will be presented in the update, Marsh explained her enjoyment at seeing players piecing together the Elite Dangerous story threads on their own, “we love to see the players doing that part of it. I think it’s really amazing to see what they find.”
Lead game designer Luke Betterton chimed in claiming that it’s “a great joy” to watch players put together the story, even when it’s not explicit. Betterton also noted that the team puts “hefty kind of narrative consideration behind a lot of what we create.”
When asked about how real-world astronomers making discoveries about the galaxy affects the game, Betterton exclaims some of his concerns and confirms that “If they start seeing stuff that we then have to retrofit into the game, that’s going to be a challenge.”
Marsh clarifies that while they wouldn’t make substantial overhauls, there’d be some changes, with NASA renaming a galaxy being used as an example of an in-game tweak the team made.