Thargoid alien spacemen have arrived in Elite Dangerous [official site], following a string of hints and discoveries, and they look pretty flipping cool. Players can now encounter a whopping great Thargoid ship in a scripted sequence with all the mystery and threat I’d want from first contact (well, in this game) with an alien civilisation who consider me so far beneath them. Here, come watch a meeting with the spacemen.

People think they’re Thargoids, at least. We don’t know. The Thargoids, to briefly explain, are a hugely advanced and mysterious insectile race who appeared in earlier Elite games with the ability to pull ships out of warp – as they do now. If you want to meet ’em, apparently the secret is to find yourself an Unknown Artefact–items that have tied into all this buildup–and warp around between stations until the martians get curious. Here’s what happened when they came for Alex Nguyan (skip to 7:10):



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Ah that’s smashing! A brief encounter with something unknowable before it’s gone. A terrifying mystery. The sad thing is, I can’t imagine the moonmen will be this cool again. I almost wish this would be their final appearance in Elite Dangerous, a short “Cor isn’t space weird and magic?” event. Seems unlikely, dunnit.

No, a year from now you’ll be casually smashing Thargoids to collect units of Tharg Juice to trade with factions for reputation points to buy a nodding dog for your spaceship’s dashboard.

That said, I do hope I’m wrong: if Frontier can top that, it’ll be fantastic. I don’t even play Elite but I found this encounter jolly exciting.

Go on Frontier, make cool scripted moments for other things too.