In 1984, a video game named Elite, created by David Braben and Ian Bell, was released to the public. It quickly became one of the most successful and influential space simulator games of all time, and was followed in 1993 by Frontier: Elite II, published by Gametek. The sequel allowed David to establish Frontier Developments in 1994. In 1995, Frontier Developments released Frontier: First Encounters, also known as "Elite III". The two Frontier titles are famous for their 1:1 scale, dynamic star systems, realistic physics, and seamless freeform planetary landings.

After a long period of developing other games, Frontier announced their plans to create a fourth game in the legendary Elite series, and in 2012 they began a crowdfunding project on Kickstarter for Elite Dangerous. Backers were able to test alpha and beta versions of the Elite Dangerous late in development, and the completed game was released for PC on December 16, 2014.

After the first year of free post-launch content updates, the second content season and first paid expansion was released on December 15, 2015: Elite Dangerous: Horizons. The game was subsequently ported to Xbox One and eventually PlayStation 4. The third content season, Elite Dangerous: Beyond, began on February 27, 2018 as a year of free updates for Horizons owners. More free updates for all players were released over the course of 2019 and 2020.

The fourth content season and second paid expansion, Elite Dangerous: Odyssey, is currently in development and will release in early 2021.