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The tech behind Elite Dangerous’s PS4 debut
We chat to Frontier about bringing the massive space sim to Sony’s console.
Take to the stars with Elite Dangerous on PS4
© Frontier Developments
After years of PC exclusivity and the Xbox One getting first dibs on a console version, PS4 fans are finally getting some Elite Dangerous love. It has been a long time coming, but in just a few short weeks – June 27 to be specific – Frontier’s ambitious space sim will finally hit the PlayStation 4 and give you the chance to experience all the magic that this sprawling game has to offer.
When Elite Dangerous was first revealed as a Kickstarter project way back in 2012, would-be backers immediately clamoured for it to come to consoles, and those cries only got louder when at E3 2015 it was announced that the game would come to Xbox One via the preview program. But for Frontier they knew that they had to get their console ports right and unfortunately for PlayStation fans that meant quite the wait.
“We’ve heard PlayStation fans calling for it, but we knew we wanted to do it the right way,” Lloyd Morgan-Moore, the producer for the Elite Dangerous PS4 version, tells Red Bull Games. “That meant making sure our infrastructure would work great on PSN [PlayStation Network], so players could encounter one another seamlessly out in the galaxy, making sure we could bring it to PS4 consoles with all our expansions like Planetary Landings, working with the unique features of the PlayStation 4, and even supporting PS4 Pro. We’re thrilled to finally be able to make it happen just as the story is heating up so that PS4 players will be a part of the story.
While we have seen rushed and neglected ports of PC games time and time again on console over the years (anyone remember Counter-Strike:Global Offensive on Xbox 360 and PS3? Thought not), this does not seem to be one of them. Building off the base of the Xbox One version the team has made sure that this is the perfect version of Elite Dangerous for the PS4, and it is impressively on par with the PC version in terms of content.
“We’ve been working on PS4 for well over a year,” says Morgan-Moore. “The Elite Dangerous team is over a hundred people strong, and while we have a dedicated PS4 team to handle things like PSN infrastructure, everyone is working on content which will appear simultaneously on all platforms. We don’t regard platforms separately when it comes to content. Fundamentally, Elite Dangerous is the same experience across every platform, start with a small ship and a handful of credits, and explore, trade, fight and survive in the cutthroat Milky Way of the 3300s.”
Of course the PS4, and its more powerful sibling, the PS4 Pro, have a few unique features that you won't find on the Xbox One or PC. The most obvious is the DualShock 4 controller that features a touchpad right in the middle. While many titles either ignore this touch pad or use it as a replacement for the start button, Elite goes one better.
“The technical differences between the console versions are pretty minor, but the Dual Shock controller affords us a few extra opportunities for controls,” says Morgan-Moore. “You can use optional motion controls for ‘head-look’ and you’ll have the choice of using the touchpad to navigate the galaxy map, but I think my favourite option is the four ‘hotkeys’ you can map to the four corners of the touchpad. It’s a neat way of optimising your controls for the way you like to play, whether you’re an explorer, trader or combat pilot.”
Surface level battles in Elite
© Frontier Developments
“PlayStation 4 is a great platform to develop for,” states Morgan-Moore. “On PC there is such a range of CPUs, graphic cards, memory sizes and speeds, hard drives and SSDs, that bottlenecks are different on each, and we have to cater for as many of these options that we can. On PS4 we have two simple specs, so we can optimise and give every player the same great experience. Best of all, the optimisations made for the PS4 release of Horizons will feed back into the PC version, because we work on all platforms together, every improvement benefits every platform.”
PlayStation VR is something we would love to be able to support, but we would want to hit our own high benchmark for quality on PS4.
There is however, one area of the PS4 that has seemingly proven a little too challenging for Frontier to work with, at least initially, and that is PlayStation VR. Elite is one of the standout titles for VR on the PC. It was one of the first major titles to offer full VR support and was the go to game for many headset demos before the devices were commercially available. VR is incredibly well suited to Elite, as the stationary nature of the player removes the motion sickness issues. But for launch at least, Elite Dangerous will not be available for PSVR.
“It’s something we would love to be able to support, but we have nothing to announce right now,” says Morgan-Moore when asked about PSVR support for Elite. “From a technical standpoint, Elite Dangerous is one of the PC’s most high-end VR titles, pushing even very powerful PCs to their limit. We would want to hit our own high benchmark for quality on PlayStation 4.”
