Ever since Mass Effect, I've had the urge to play a space sim that actually let you explore the universe. Starfield was a massive disappointment, No Man's Sky was fun, but tedious, and Star Citizen is a cash grab. Elite Dangerous is almost exactly what I was looking for. A 1:1 recreation or our own galaxy is pretty amazing, and really feels like an entire Universe to explore.
The game is deep and challenging, where Starfield was shallow and, arguably, too easy. The grind is still interesting and fun, where I found NMS boring and repetitive. ED offers a huge variety of missions and activities to engage the player, and focuses on realism over casaul mechanics. NMS feels, to me, like the arcade version of ED. The best part is, in 2026, you can enjoy the whole game for under $10.
I want to emphasize that the challenge of Elite Dangerous is a huge factor in why I enjoy it so much. When I started playing, I cleared my save a dozen times due to the learning curve. Even after the tutorial, it takes some time to learn how to prevent mission failures, evade ruthless pirates gangs, and avoid crashing into a space port. The game can be quite harsh and unforgiving at times, but that it honestly an important part of the realism and the reason it feels so rewarding to complete missions and progress through the game.
The grind can be tedious at times, like NMS, but you can always just find something else to do or explore, and the grind actually feels rewarding. It is more than just: fly to another procedurally generated planet, mine ore, scan the lifeform, return to ship. While ED is also procedural, there is enough variation and diversity that it never really feels that way.
I only began playing this game recently. So I missed a lot of the lore and the major events. Other players are quite often PVP griefers who will shoot you down for no other reason than you were a blip on their radar. There is little room for error and you will find yourself in plenty of unfair situations, which all adds to the realism of the game.
Because of the cutthroat nature of open play, it makes perfect sense to just play solo in the beginning, which I usually do, and it takes nothing away from the experience. I find myself playing solo to grind, upgrade my ships/weapons, and then go open to interact with other players, either cooperating on missions or dogfighting around Nav Beacons or extraction zones.
I hope there is more coming, as far as multi-player events and challenges, but even still, there is more than enough reason to play Elite Dangerous, if you are interested in playing an epic space simulator that is challenging and immersive.
