Some people said it would never happen. But here we are.

I can't be the only duder that likes flying me some fancy spaceships, even if I rarely venture out of solo play.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4sAe16UTDg

https://elitedangerous.com/en/horizons

I am incredibly excited for this. This game gets so little love on GB.

Excited to see this get announced! Will be fun blasting over people's heads while they're rolling around on the planet surface.

But what do... sorry wrong game.

ED is already a great game, but if they do this expansion right, it could turn into a friggin' masterpiece.

I wonder if this 'season of Expansions' will be free for Premium Beta backers o:)

My expectation levels are currently set at driving the Mako on barren empty worlds but with a flight stick.

I dunno, I might jump back in when this comes out.

Love Elite, anything that adds more depth to the experience is good in my books, will def be picking this up.

I enjoyed the Mako in Mass Effect. I'm going to be all over this.

Wow this looks rad

I should probably get back into Elite tbh

http://www.gamesradar.com/elite-dangerous-horizons-will-let-you-land-planets/

Bit more stuff on GamesRadar.

Unfortunately, unless there is more actual content and player controlled stuff (economy's, "corporations", etc) the game will feel rather hollow for me. I am excited at the news though so hopefully its pretty cool. Interested to see what they are calling "story content".

Sounds really cool, I've barely touched the main game ended up spending about 15 hours getting the controls right and learning how to fly. Then couldn't land at a station and got fined only to realize i was landing backwards lol. The possibilities of what can be done in this game has me intrigued

Huh, I had never heard anybody say it wouldn't happen. It was clear from fairly early on that it wouldn't be a free addition to the game though, which is kinda sad in itself since Elite 2 and 3 did include that from the get go. I guess they could get it to make sense from an in-universe kind of view as heat shields for atmospheric entry that only players who buys the DLC will get access to or something. Ship mass was already taken into account in Elite 3 as I recall, where the biggest ships could possibly land on all planets, but then wouldn't have enough engine power to take off again.

Finally!! It might actually be as good as Frontier Elite 2 on the Amiga now!

Looks like it's going to be $45 USD, and that's the "discounted" loyalty price for existing Elite: Dangerous owners. To top it off, the expansion is only going to launch with a certain type of world that one can land on in the beginning, not everything. So it's an Early Access expansion.

As exciting as this is I can't drop $40 on an already empty feeling $60 game

It's $45...and that is with the "limited time loyalty discount" for existing E:D owners, and for an expansion that will be rolled out of the course of 8 months or longer as they continue to work on it.

Doesn't sound that great, but then again we know next to no actual details about Horizons at this point. I'm sure more will become clear over the course of the next few weeks.

@Mike: I guess the important thing to remember is that it just got announced.

It still stings a bit though because the base game feels nearly empty to me.

From one of the developers on the Frontier forums:

"Planets with life and atmosphere will be in another season."

So this expansion will be lifeless rocks without atmosphere only.

so will the other season be paid too? If so this seems like a huge money sink

Alright. Sure. But what'll I do once I'm down there? Hunt more bounties?

Yep, all seasons will be paid expansions. There is an expansion pass that is something like £129.

@theht: this is my big worry about this game, they're adding things to the game they just don't seem like the right things.

@Mike: Holy crap, that's pricey. Stilll exciting, just might have to wait a while on a sale if that stuff ever comes to consoles.

Wonder what'll be worth doing on the planet's surface. After playing a lot of Evochron Mercenary, it was novel to fly down to a planet's surface but there wasn't much to do.

As of right now this first expansion hasn't even been announced for consoles, but the support dude said that with a "yet ;)"

@sin4profit I'm wondering the same thing, but we'll see. This was all just announced only a few hours ago.

This is disgusting.

@crembaw: Yeah, I'm not too happy about it either. I'm waiting to see what this "season" will actually entail, though. Unfortunately, Frontier doesn't seem to be very transparent when it comes to stuff like this, so it's hard to say what the entirety of the Horizons season will include when all is said and done.

I don't mind expansions and expansion passes, but at least tell your customers up front what exactly it is that you're asking them to buy.

@Mike: I think it is likely they still do not know that. Frontier is no EA. I bet ED is only barely profitable.

Some more information has come out in the latest devlog:

As with our previous major updates, the Elite Dangerous: Horizons season of content is more than just the headline features. We will also continue to expand and build upon what is already in game. This will include missions, player roles and events in the galaxy, and many other features we have not yet discussed.

Some of these additions will be exclusive to Elite Dangerous: Horizons’ season owners (and if you have the lifetime expansion pass then you of course get it automatically). Others may be more fundamental, or are needed for the whole player-base so will be available to all players.

Throughout the season there will be major updates adding features and content. One example, which we will be talking more about in the near future, is a new loot and crafting system which again we expect to transform the gameplay experience.

https://community.elitedangerous.com/node/248

Still not exact details, but I do think you might be right about Frontier not knowing exactly for sure themselves.

I'm pretty excited for Horizons, and for their "seasons of content" to come.

They've made great improvements to the game since launch, and there are still more things to come in season one before Horizons begins season two. I've heard of update 1.5 "Ships" that's supposed to be released sometime between 1.4 "CQC" and Horizons. I'm guessing it will include new ships, the new gravity well flight model, and perhaps the SRV modules that we'll put to use once Horizons is released.

Really looking forwards to season 2. As always the issue is going to be one of expectations and the control thereof (remember that the many features Frontier are starting to talk about just now will roll out slowly over a full year and will likely go through a bunch of refinement if the first year has told us anything). In either case the prospect of how this game is going to change (hell, is changing) as it develops and gets built out is incredibly exciting.