An armada of 6,500 Elite Dangerous players just embarked on a three-month expedition to explore the Milky Way, and there’s still time to join them

Humanity is still in the early stages of exploring the cosmos, with Artemis 2 preparing to take us back to the moon and then onwards to Mars. But if NASA’s progress is a little pedestrian for you, then “Elite Dangerous” is the game for you.

“Elite Dangerous” is one of the best space exploration games out there, featuring a fully-realised — and intimidatingly large — Milky Way galaxy for players to explore. And that’s exactly what they’re doing, as over 6500 players have just embarked on Distant Worlds 3 — a community-led journey to the deepest reaches of the galaxy that will last for around 3 months.

The previous two Distant Worlds events set out in 2016 and 2019, respectively, with 1300 players joining the first expedition, and nearly 14,000 pilots signing up for the second voyage. It’s not just a rat race to the center of the galaxy, though — the organizers put together special player-run events that include “geology projects, mining goals, mapping surveys, and a science project”.

Reddit user TicklesYourElmo posted a video of their flotilla launching off on the expedition, and damn does it look cool to see all those ships jumping to FTL in unison.

Annnnd we’re off from r/EliteDangerous

I love seeing this kind of immersive, community-led stuff in massively-multiplayer games. Players embracing more than just the cool “oh look, I’m flying a spaceship” side of the game and focusing on the spirit of exploration and discovery that drives real space missions. At the end of Distant Worlds 2, they’d built a whole space station called Explorer’s Anchorage at the galactic center, near Sagittarius A*, so I can’t wait to see what these brave souls accomplish this time.

For the uninitiated, “Elite Dangerous” is a massive online space game set in a 1:1 scale replica of our galaxy, where players pilot spaceships to explore, trade, and battle it out amongst the stars. The game launched all the way back in 2014 and has evolved significantly since then, with major updates overhauling core systems, adding the ability to land on planets, and even triggering an alien invasion.

“We’re very excited to see Commanders from around the world embarking on Distant Worlds 3. It’s an enormous player-led activity, and celebrates the incredible community around Elite Dangerous who remain active and passionate about the series,” Gauthier Verquerre, Executive Producer on Elite Dangerous, told Space.com in an email.

“As a studio, it’s always a very special moment seeing a Distant World expedition depart, as you get such a fantastic mix of newer players and seasoned explorers, and the support which they lend each other is wonderful to see.”

The expedition has already set off, but you can probably still catch them if you’re quick. Head over to the Distant Worlds 3 website and sign up now. Or if you’d rather stay planetside, check out the time we took a guided tour of the solar system in “Elite Dangerous“.