Elite: Dangerous Will have Graphics Options Today’s PCs Can’t Handle

Developer Frontier Developments reveals that the game will launch with graphics options that players won’t be able to run with their current PC hardware.

In a new interview head of developer Frontier Developments David Braben said that "We're going through some wonderful effects internally that look truly beautiful, and we're saying, that slows the frame-rate a bit, doesn't it? And we say yes, but we don't mind, because it looks so beautiful. But what we're going to do is attach it to this part of the detail slider. Or we'll call it out as a tick box...Even if your PC of today can't run with all the features on, your PC of tomorrow might."

Braben also said that he loves the idea that these options will future proof Elite: Dangerous. As the game could look great long after it its initial release as players get better PC hardware.

"One of the things that's really helped us was we had that huge scalability, so the game could run on the laptop of 2004. It could also run on the uber desktop of 2004. Which is the laptop of today. I want to make sure we do the same with Elite: Dangerous."

Elite: Dangerous is set to launch in beta on July 29 for PC, with the full release coming later this year.