Elite

Details

Playtime Not Played
Last Activity Never
Added 9/1/2025 11:36:42
Modified 9/2/2025 13:26:46
Completion Status Not Played
Library Playnite
Source
Platform Nintendo Entertainment System
Release Date 9/20/1984
Community Score
Critic Score
User Score
Genre Shooter
Simulator
Strategy
Developer Acornsoft
David Braben
Frontier Developments
Ian Bell
Publisher Acornsoft
Digital Integration
Firebird
Hybrid Technology
Imagineer
Merlin Software U.K.
Feature Single Player
Links Official Website
Wikipedia
Twitch
Tag

Description

Elite is a space trading video game, written and developed by David Braben and Ian Bell and originally published by Acornsoft for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron computers in September 1984. Elite's open-ended game model, and revolutionary 3D graphics led to it being ported to virtually every contemporary home computer system, and earned it a place as a classic and a genre maker in gaming history. The game's title derives from one of the player's goals of raising their combat rating to the exalted heights of "Elite".

Elite was one of the first home computer games to use wire-frame 3D graphics with hidden line removal. It added graphics and twitch gameplay aspects to the genre established by the 1974 game Star Trader. Another novelty was the inclusion of The Dark Wheel, a novella by Robert Holdstock which gave players insight into the moral and legal codes to which they might aspire.