Game cover: Elite

Elite

Release date: 20/09/1984 by Acornsoft

Shooter • Simulator • Strategy

Acorn Archimedes
BBC Microcomputer System
Commodore C64/128/MAX
ZX Spectrum
Atari ST/STE
Acorn Electron
DOS
Tatung Einstein
Amiga
Apple II
Amstrad CPC
Nintendo Entertainment System
MSX

Score

78

Main story

N/A

Completionist

200h

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.

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