The space sandbox game Elite Dangerous invites long adventures. Two players, who have impressively documented their adventurous journey for 18 months and are gaining more viewers, are taking a particularly long route through space. They lose ships on their journey, argue, and are hunted by bounty hunters. MeinMMO spoke with the friends about their motivations.
All this happens for a reason: Zach and Skoomer are two passionate players. When their friends told them that there was nothing to do in Elite Dangerous, the two took this as an incentive for a video series. In this, they want to prove the opposite and show how much fun one can have in the sandbox game.
They stage their journey so well that they are now gaining greater attention in the community and are being showered with positive feedback. But what led to this?
A very special video series
On June 9, 2017, Skoomer published the first video on his YouTube channel. In it, he and Zach set off from the Sol system on an adventure called “Elite: Strange Worlds,” which has not yet been completed.
What is special about their videos? In their videos, the two players focus on entertainment, role-playing, and stunning visuals. For the latter, they use the “Camera Suit,” which was released with patch 2.3.
This allows for capturing images of the characters and ships from various perspectives. They aim to show what is possible in Elite Dangerous.
A special highlight is also the story that Zach and Skoomer experience.
This trailer shows how impressively the journey is staged
A year after the release of the first video, the two released a trailer. This perfectly summarizes the journey and captures the mood that runs through the entire series. When you watch the video, you will quickly recognize the unique atmosphere.
How do the viewers react?
The project by Zach and Skoomer has many fans. Their YouTube channel CaptainSkoomer has already grown to over 35,000 subscribers. Their videos consistently receive positive signals. The first video in the series has a strong 2,037 likes against just 14 dislikes. The viewers are excited about the format:
- YouTube user Heradin commented under the embedded trailer that after watching the video, he dreams of traveling through space in the real world.
- Viewer F1rools22 believes that because of the visuals and good editing, the videos are even better than the official PR work by Frontier, the developer of Elite Dangerous.
And there are many other positive comments as well. Both the story and the visuals, along with the selected soundtracks, are highlighted.
What makes the story of “Elite: Strange Worlds” special
While the first 11 episodes focus on the beginning of the journey and special locations, the story quickly gains momentum afterward. Skoomer loses his spaceship in an accident, nearly losing his life. There are also complications in acquiring a new ship.
And episode 22 shows how strongly the story also lives from emotional, interpersonal moments. There, the two protagonists get into an argument and separate.
After they have calmed down a bit, they try to contact each other again, but in vain: Skoomer finds that his communication device no longer works. He can no longer connect to the outside world. What follows are dramatic events. The scenes become darker and more emotional. The two suffer from mental problems due to loneliness, while they desperately try to find each other.
Meanwhile, we also learn from a radio report in the latest episode that bounty hunters will soon be appearing, who have their sights set on Zach and Skoomer.
The route for their journey through space
For their video series, Zach and Skoomer have chosen a particularly long journey with much to discover. There are also some abandoned and dangerous locations along the way across space.
Where is the journey heading? From Sol, the main planet in the south of the map, they first head to the center of the galaxy. After that, Beagle Point is the destination, a system very far out in the north of the map.
Subsequently, they take the route back to Sol, but this time not through the center. They go completely along the edge of the galaxy until they reach their starting point.
Where are the two now? After more than 28 episodes and now 18 months, they are not far from Beagle Point in the north of the map. The outward journey is almost complete.
The return journey will, however, be many times longer. When this mammoth project will end is still uncertain.
Community events become boring, but is that a problem?
Skoomer alias Till contacted us, as he had read the article about the Community Event Distant Worlds 2. Although he thinks it’s good that there are such community projects, he believes that the full potential is not utilized there:
Such expeditions in Elite: Dangerous always sound exciting and thrilling. But when you participate in the game itself, you generally don’t notice a new star coming at you after every jump – and that thousands of times. This leads to many people considering exploration boring.
With their project, they want to show in contrast what can be achieved with creativity in such an adventure. Skoomer said to us:
But I wanted to change this perception of this “boring gameplay” and show people what can be made out of such a journey – with enough creativity.
In December of this year, there was an update that further improved Elite Dangerous. You can read more about it in this article:
