Elite: Dangerous' alpha and beta plans detailed in new dev diary

In the latest Elite: Dangerous dev diary, David Braben has revealed the date of the Kickstarted space sim's alpha launch. Well, he's revealed the month at least, casually uttering the word 'December' while sitting in front of the entirety of space wearing a lovely salmon shirt. It won't be the full game, but rather several discreet segments - still, getting our hands on at least part of a new Elite is something to be excited about.

The alpha period will start with a test of Elite: Dangerous' combat, before moving onto different components in turn, which will eventually be bundled together (i.e. turned into an actual game) for the beta test. After that , all Kickstarter backers be given access to a 'gamma' testing phase before the game's official release.

(Thanks to RPS )

Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.