Frontier still has a few surprises left for Elite Dangerous players before the BEYOND updates rollout in 2018, including a powerful new variant of the Thargoid ships spotted near Merope. Details on the new interceptor, which the community has dubbed the “basilisk,” remain scarce; however, its sudden appearance does suggest there’s more to the Thargoids’ resurgence than fans realized when the ammonia-based aliens returned to Elite Dangerous in September.
Before you get too excited, or get the impression that a new ship model has been added to the game, the only visual difference between the Thargoid ships we’d already seen and this new variant is a palette swap. In recent months. Elite pilots encountered numerous green vessels that emit an orange-yellow light when scanning or powering up weapons. The new version, which initially appears as an Unidentified Signal Source at threat level six, glows bright red before it lays waste to human vessels. And early footage, captured by members of the ED community, suggest the new ships are even more powerful than their predecessors.
The new Thargoid vessels don’t just seem to be more powerful than previous models. They also seem to be more aggressive. For months, players reported hundreds of peaceful interactions with the mysterious alien ships spotted throughout the Milky Way. Sometimes human pilots were interdicted and scanned. Other occasions saw pilots stumble across Thargoids who appeared to be scanning the wreckage from recently destroyed capital ships. Some even figured out how to disable the Thargoids long enough to get some shockingly close photographs of their hull. But that isn’t the case anymore. It probably won’t be more than a few days before someone from the Smiling Dog Crew publishes another Thargoid takedown video to make the rest of us feel bad about our piloting skills. But, for now, the Elite Dangerous community is on its back foot again.
Elite Dangerous is currently available on PS4, Xbox One and PC. The next round of content, the first of two BEYOND updates planned for next year, is expected to debut in Q1 2018.
Be sure to check back with Player.One and follow Scott on Twitter for more Elite Dangerous news in 2017 and however long Frontier Developments supports Elite Dangerous in the years ahead.
