Elite: Dangerous 'Powerplay' update released

Surprise! People own the galaxy now. With today's release of the Powerplay update for Elite: Dangerous, galactic powers have descended to divide up the universe. You can join up with one of those powers to complete special objectives to help your benefactor spread their influence through space. Finally, the game's playerbase can shift the power-balance of the Milky Way.

There's more, too. In addition to the Powerplay system, the new update also brings a better mission system, three new ships, and a bunch of other improvements. You'll find the patch's feature list below.

An enhanced mission system with new objectives and new ways to play.

Three new ships: the Lakon Diamondback Scout, Lakon Diamondback Explorer and the Imperial Courier.
Drones for cargo collection, fuel trading and prospecting.
A new illustrated GalNet newsfeed, accessible directly in players’ ship UI.
High and low intensity mining sites, adding risk to mining and increasing potential rewards.
New minable commodities.
An updated bounty system.
Upgraded UI and animated emblems for ranking up.
Numerous other improvements to gameplay and performance.

Powerplay is out now in Elite: Dangerous. (Update: As of 11 am PT, the game servers are still offline while the update is being applied.)

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.