Elite Dangerous’ already long-overdue 16-person Fleet Carriers will no longer arrive this December as previously announced, and are now expected to launch some time next year.
Fleet Carriers, as previously detailed by developer Frontier, are capital ships intended to function as a base of operations for large, organised Squadrons. They can be purchased (for a significant amount of credits) and piloted by a single Commander, but feature 16 landing pads to accommodate a full complement of players.
All of which sounds very exciting – just as it did when the feature was originally unveiled in 2017. Back then, Fleet Carriers were announced to arrive as part of 2018’s Beyond update. However, as Beyond’s fourth and final chapter neared release last October, Frontier revealed that Fleet Carriers had been “reprioritised”. It later announced that they’d finally be implemented this December, a full year after their originally planned debut.
