# Elite Dangerous

15 Hacker News commenters recommended Elite Dangerous and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Praised as a hardcore space sim with a 1:1 Milky Way and VR support. Caveats: boredom over long play and a heavy headset.

## Why people recommend it

- Realistic 1:1 scale Milky Way (2 comments): "VR in Elite Dangerous allows you to fly in outer space in a 1:1 scale Milky Way Galaxy." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49829094)) "with a gaming rig and an interest in scale of a galaxy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48227862))
- Hardcore spaceflight simulation (2 comments): "Spaceflight simulators like Elite Dangerous are quite fun as well" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49702976)) "Elite Dangerous is the most hardcore space game I'm aware of" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49646298))
- Preferred over No Man's Sky (2 comments): "Everything about ED is what I like about NMS and vice versa for that matter." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49647707)) "Elite Dangerous does it better." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48226032))

## What people warn about

- Boredom after long play (2 comments): "I also bounced multiple times off Elite Dangerous due to boredom." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49643280)) "which I played for several hundred ours before getting bored of it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49639323))
- Scale feels empty and disconnected (2 comments): "there’s, I think, three orders of magnitude of flying around. Which really disconnects me from the feel of it all." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49634576)) "the vast majority of them contain no story, no life, no space stations, no other players" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49636744))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [No Man's Sky](https://hackerapproved.com/p/no-man-s-sky.md): 97 recommend
- [Kerbal Space Program](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kerbal-space-program.md): 24 recommend
- [Starflight](https://hackerapproved.com/p/starflight.md): 17 recommend
- [Star Citizen](https://hackerapproved.com/p/star-citizen.md): 11 recommend
- [Wing Commander](https://hackerapproved.com/p/wing-commander.md): 7 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://www.elitedangerous.com/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Elite Dangerous", https://hackerapproved.com/p/elite-dangerous/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).