Elite Dangerous cancels Odyssey expansion and all future content on consoles

eurogamer.net:

Frontier Developments will no longer be releasing new content for its long-running space sim Elite Dangerous on Xbox and PlayStation, and development on the console version of its poorly received Odyssey expansion has ceased.

The news follows a difficult period for Elite Dangerous, which has struggled to right the ship after a disastrous launch for Odyssey on PC. The expansion was, of course, supposed to be a brave new frontier for the space sim when it arrived last May, finally giving players the long-requested ability to stretch their legs, step out of their ships, and roam around planets, settlements, and space stations on foot.

Unfortunately for those that purchased it, the £30 expansion arrived in a shocking state when management opted to shove it out the door in May, plagued with performance issues, server outages, and a heap of bugs. Odyssey rapidly accrued a Mostly Negative rating on Steam, and Frontier responded by delaying the Xbox and PlayStation versions indefinitely in order to «prioritise the core PC experience for Elite Dangerous».

Elite Dangerous: Odyssey — Launch Trailer.

Since then, Odyssey has received ten major post-launch updates on PC as of this January in a bid to fix its many, many issues, and the assumption was Frontier would turn its attention back to the console version once the expansion was finally in an acceptable state.

Now, however, Frontier boss David Braben has confirmed that not only is development for Odyssey on consoles officially dead, the studio will no longer be supporting the Xbox One and PS4 games with new content moving forward.

«It's no secret that Odyssey's launch was less than ideal,» Braben wrote, «including the need to split the PC/console player base to focus on a PC-only