The player commands a spaceship and explores a realistic 1:1 scale, open-world representation of the Milky Way galaxy, with the gameplay being open-ended.

[16] Open Play gameplay is similar to Eve Online in that many actions that would be considered griefing in other multiplayer games are generally permitted, as long as there is a valid roleplaying reason (e.g. robbery, extortion and blocking off star systems).

With the second in-game currency called Arx (also buyable with real money), players can purchase visual changes for their ships, like other coloring or cosmetic parts.

Within the virtual galaxy, the player can explore some 400 billion star systems complete with planets and moons that rotate and orbit in real time, reflecting dynamic day-night cycles.

[25] Patch 1.3, which launched in June 2015,[26] featured the Power Play addition which introduced competitive, galactic faction challenges.

[30] Frontier had been working on the game as a skunk-works background activity for some time prior to its Kickstarter launch,[31] with other projects being prioritised.

[32] On 14 November 2014, one month before launch, David Braben announced the removal of the game's offline single player mode, the developers having decided that they could not deliver an acceptable offline-only experience based on the original design.

[35] The Xbox One version early access launched in June 2015 as part of Microsoft's Game Preview program briefing at E3 2015.

They are exorbitantly (though not entirely prohibitively) expensive in terms of in-game currency, owing partially to the fact that they also require periodic refueling stops.

An alternative variant of the Frame-Shift Drive, the game's method of faster-than-light travel, would be developed by integrating Thargoid Titan technology into human components.

The Supercruise Overcharge (SCO),[45] as it's called, would vastly increase the speed of travel at the cost of lessened stability, excessive heat buildup, and immense fuel usage.

[52] The project had difficulty in attracting sufficient funding, which Braben had attributed to the traditional publishing model, which he saw as being biased against games with no recent comparable predecessors.

[54] Public fundraising commenced in November 2012 using the Kickstarter website,[55] the campaign lasting 60 days, with the aim being to raise £1.25m[56] and deliver a finished game by March 2014.

[57] Braben described the campaign as a way of "test-marketing the concept to verify there is broader interest in such a game", in addition to raising the funds.

[59] Although the game's original total development budget had been £8 million, by September 2014 this had, in Braben's words, "grown by quite a lot".

Odyssey was announced by Frontier Developments on 3 June 2020 via a video trailer and summary post on their official forums, with launch scheduled for 19 May 2021.

[85] The paid DLC will let players explore worlds on foot, undertake ground missions that, much like their cosmic counterparts, include diplomatic gigs, commercial ventures and combat; find work, assistance and shops in social hubs all across the galaxy, meeting fellow pilots in person rather than peering at them through a cockpit window.

[86][87] Referred to as "New Era" in prior communications, full production on Odyssey began in Summer 2018 with a large majority of the Elite development team allocated to it.

In phase 1, players were unable to access their ships, which meant that they were only able to get around using the newly added "Apex Interstellar" taxi service, and they were limited to a single star system.

The launch was followed by major issues of client/server stability, several gameplay bugs, and inadequate performance for PC clients stated within the hardware requirements.

[93] Players also complained widely on both Steam and the official forum about a steep increase in time to collect instrumental resources, broken mechanics, and missing end game activities.

These focused on stability and bug fixes, with critical performance issues left to be addressed in later updates in the run up to the planned console release.

[97] On 29 July 2021, Frontier Developments released update 6 with declared corrections to missions, POIs, interface problems, and the addition of AMD's FSR technology to address in minor measure performance issues for affected hardware configurations by downgrading and then scaling the effective resolution.

[99] On 22 September 2021, Frontier Developments released update 7 after being postponed for several weeks, which fixed many outstanding issues, added quality of life changes, and optimized some game features.

[100] On 10 March 2022, Frontier CEO David Braben announced on the company's forums that all further content development for console versions of Elite: Dangerous was being cancelled, citing the need to move the game's story forward by focusing on a single, post-Odyssey codebase.

[105] Chris Thursten of PC Gamer rated the game 86/100, considering it to be "potentially a classic", depending on Frontier's ability to build on the "broad but somewhat shallow foundations" of the released version.

Thursten described the gameplay experience as "exhilarating excitement, matched by nothing else this year, contrasted with moments of emptiness, frustration, and boredom".

Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Elite Dangerous for "Outstanding Achievement in Online Gameplay".

[130] By the end of April 2015, Elite Dangerous had sold over 500,000 copies, with Frontier Developments expected to generate £22 million from sales.

[135] During an interview published on 23 October 2020, Frontier CFO Alex Bevis announced that Elite Dangerous had generated more than £100 million of revenue.