Open that bottle of space champagne, the aliens have been wiped out. At least that’s what the interstellar pilots of Elite Dangerous are celebrating in the galaxy-sized multiplayer space sim. Earlier this month, the Thargoid menace finally landed in the Sol system, putting earth itself under threat for the first time, not to mention other human homeworlds and colonies. This meant players were invited to drop everything and head for home – to embark on one last great stand against the final, desperate, and dangerous alien attacker: a Thargoid Titan called “Cocijo”. Don’t worry, they got him.
“The war is over,” say Frontier. “We vanquished the enemy at our doorstep and now is the time to rebuild.” Here’s a recording of the Titan finally being blown to bits, courtesy of player Ricardo, who recorded the final event while sitting in his ship watching the ET’s last moments. Titans are the biggest alien vessel in the game, massive capital ships certainly capable of eating a planet or two. When they were first discovered, hiding in the maelstrom clouds after a game update, they were found to be scary and noisy. “Like an orchestra of alien tubas gargling mouthwash,” said Katharine.
The asplosion comes just two weeks after the ships showed up in Sol, on December 5th. Titans are fought by bombing them to kingdom come. This means earth defenders had to load out their ships with some swish sci-fi gear. They needed “caustic sinks” to negate the hull-eating effects of a cloud of horrible space gas the alien exudes. They had to fit a “pulse neutraliser” to nullify the angry waves of painful gravity the aliens pump out. And they required rack after rack of missiles to rain down upon the monster when they finally did manage to get close, aiming (like all good trench runs) for the thermal vents on the alien’s hull. All this while avoiding Thargoid interceptor ships, dodging the mines laid in the hideous caustic cloud, and escaping from a burst of blue energy the Titan unleashes when it feels most vulnerable.
Say what you like about the dry space trucking of the sim, this is excellent sci-fi craic. Few video games can result in video guides as satisfyingly dambusters as this. Veteran players may also notice in that linked video that the pilot is sitting there with his engine idling at a low heat. That’s because Commanders were advised to keep their thermal levels low if they wanted to watch the fireworks – so they wouldn’t be noticed by any of the Titan’s last protective fighter vessels. A successful bombing run netted players millions of credits in payment for an alien well-whacked. And now that the Titan lies in pieces, even pilots who avoid combat can go and scavenge the wreckage for Thargoid components worth a few hundred thousand credits.
Developers Frontier have also celebrated the victory with a post on Steam, calling it an “epilogue” to the Thargoid saga. But they haven’t said what’s next for the aliens. Does this mean we won’t see any more Titans appearing in the galaxy? Or does it just mean the threat to Earth is over? Smaller Thargoid vessels are still around to mop up, it seems, and we’re not told yet if they’re planning to remove those or leave them around.
The Thargoids have had a fun history in the game when you pile it all up. The possibility of alien life beyond bacteria was first teased in early 2016 when players found strange barnacles on the surface of planets. Players soon started to discover spooky distress signals hinting at further dangers from beyond known space. “Oh my gods, it can’t be,” read one of the ill-fated messages. “These things are a myth… That noise…” Soon enough players found crashed remains of extraterrestrials. Then pilots started getting pulled out of warp by huge Thargoid scout ships, who would disable their vessel, scan them with sinister intent, and warp away.
Eventually, the aliens attacked. Almost two years after the first signs of aggressive alien life appeared, an update brought combat encounters with the Thargoids to the sim. They’ve been around in some form or another ever since, amping up their attacks on human space significantly in 2022. Now, this seems to be putting a bookend on the aliens as the big bad guy.
Elite Dangerous itself is ten years old this year, which does make me curious about what’s next on the agenda. Other games might have seen a sequel by now, but I’m not sure what a sequel would achieve that more expansions and continued support could not. I guess we’ll see!