Elite
Elite is a space trading video game, written and developed by David Braben and Ian Bell and originally published by Acornsoft for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron computers in September 1984. Elite's open-ended game model, and revolutionary 3D graphics led to it being ported to virtually every contemporary home computer system, and earned it a place as a classic and a genre maker in gaming history. The game's title derives from one of the player's goals of raising their combat rating to the exalted heights of "Elite".
Elite was one of the first home computer games to use wire-frame 3D graphics with hidden line removal. It added graphics and twitch gameplay aspects to the genre established by the 1974 game Star Trader. Another novelty was the inclusion of The Dark Wheel, a novella by Robert Holdstock which gave players insight into the moral and legal codes to which they might aspire.
79Wit Score
Details
DeveloperFrontier Developments, Ian Bell, David Braben
PublisherImagineer, Digital Integration, Acornsoft, Firebird, Hybrid Technology, Merlin Software U.K.
ReleasedSeptember 20, 1984
StatusReleased
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Modes
SeriesElite
Wit-Index Intelligence
Community Score
Worth Playing79/100
About This Game
When a trading vessel called the Avalonia is ambushed and destroyed by a mysterious Cobra-class freighter in Witch-Space, young Alex Ryder barely escapes in a pod, clutching only his father's cryptic final word: "Raxxla." Rescued and determined to avenge Jason Ryder's death, Alex soon discovers his father was no ordinary merchant but an elite combateer connected to the Dark Wheel, a clandestine organization hunting for a legendary ghost planet. Teaming up with Elyssia Fields, a sharp-witted fugitive, Alex acquires a battered Cobra and begins a dangerous campaign of trading and combat training, gradually upgrading his ship while navigating betrayals, parasitic cargo, and swarms of hostile forces drawn to the unregistered planet Cirag. As Alex transforms himself into a lethal pilot and pursues the vessel responsible for his father's death, he finds himself caught between personal vengeance and a far larger conspiracy—one where those guarding Raxxla's secrets will stop at nothing to keep them hidden. His victory over his father's killer and his rise to legendary combat status mark only the beginning of a deeper reckoning with forces that have been watching his every move.