by 
When Xbox announced its latest massive batch of new Xbox Game Pass titles, one of the games that caught our eye was Elite Dangerous, and unfortunately not for the best of reasons.
Don't get us wrong — Elite Dangerous is a great game! Unfortunately though, console development was cancelled all the way back in early 2022, meaning just "critical updates" would be issued to the Xbox version going forward.
Here's how this was announced at the time:
"Over the last several months, we have been wrestling with the best way to move forward, and it is with a heavy heart we have decided to cancel all console development. We need to be able to move forward with the story of the game, and in order for us to do this we need to focus on a single codebase. Elite Dangerous will continue on console as it is now together with critical updates, but we will focus on new content updates on PC on the post-Odyssey codebase."
What makes the Game Pass addition even stranger is that it's only for console and Xbox Cloud Gaming, and not the superior PC version. This is because Elite Dangerous for PC doesn't exist on the Microsoft Store in any form right now.
And so, yeah... some Elite Dangerous players are questioning why it's getting added to Game Pass at all, although others are arguing that it's still a great game, even in its 2022 state. Here are some examples:
Elite Dangerous returns to Game Pass after a multi-year absence on May 12th for Ultimate and Premium members, and by all means you should check it out, but just keep in mind that PC is where the best version lies these days.
This kinda feels like the Kerbal Space Program situation though — it's definitely not as good on console as PC, but some people still really love it on Xbox, and more power to them! Try it out for yourself, see what you think, and it might even encourage you to go and buy the PC version at some point down the line.
We'll leave you with a video we've come across about the Xbox version that was published in November of 2025: