Fans of Elite: Dangerous got some some disappointing news this week when it was revealed that Frontier Developments would be dropping support on Mac. Support for the platform was originally added in 2015, but has been plagued by technical issues since inception.
Hello Commanders,
It is with great sadness that we must announce the upcoming end of Elite Dangerous on Mac. Firstly, we want to reassure you that this decision did not come lightly and is something that we have been investigating for some time. As many of you will know, despite our best efforts, we have been unable to bring Elite Dangerous Horizons to Mac since launch due to technical barriers. With the planned improvements coming in our Chapter Four update of the Beyond season we have felt it necessary to make this difficult decision in order to allow us to bring in content and features in the way that we felt was best for the overall Elite Dangerous experience. It is for this reason that we wanted to give you as much notice as possible. With the release of the Q4 update, coming towards the end of the year, you will no longer be able to play Elite Dangerous on Mac. As soon as we have a date of the update to share, we will do so here.At the point of the Q4 update, you will no longer be able to access Elite Dangerous products through the Mac OS. However, you will still be able to log into your account on PC (or via Bootcamp.)
We hope you will understand why we have taken this course of action and would encourage those of you who have questions or concerns, to please contact our Support Team HERE who are on hand and ready to help!
Thanks again,
Ed and the Elite Dangerous team
The issues with Mac and Elite boil down to the fact that many core features of the game are stubbornly bugged on the platform. The introduction of the Horizons expansion only exacerbated the issue, as many core features of Horizons content didn’t work at all when launched. The developer has attempted to rectify these issues through it’s various performance patches for Elite: Dangerous, but with very limited success. So it appears that they’re deciding to cut the cord now rather than wasting resources on a half-baked version of the game.
What this means is that Mac users will soon have to choose between the game and OS. The accounts will still be accessible via Bootcamp installations, but the game will not be playable once this update lands.
There has also been some speculation in the community about if this update will see the full Horizons expansion bundled into the base game, now that the Mac hurdle would no longer hold that integration back. I guess we’ll see soon enough.
And with Elite: Dangerous Beyond content incoming, it will be interesting to see where Frontier takes their flagship title in the future.
While it’s sad that these things happen, it was inevitable given the nature of the problem in this case.
