Personally I love Elite Dangerous, but have still only spent ~50 hours in it.

It’s a fantastic flight sim. But IMO it’s just not as captivating as a purposefully created narrative. It’s good for different reasons. I know they’ve added ground/walking stuff since last I played. I know you can discover alien stuff and wander alongside the ‘story’ in the game. But it’s closer to FromSoft style reading text descriptions and forum posts to follow the story than it is playing an RPG.

I played the original Elite on the BBC, and then Elite 2 & 3 on the Amiga. Elite Dangerous on the PC was just plain dull by comparison.

Not op, but I’ve put 200 hours into elite and feel a similar way about starfield. Elite doesn’t scratch the itch that mass effect has.

Mass effect is full of interesting characters and situations between people, elite has the powerplay characters (who I believe you dont actually interact with) and no one else. Every npc you interact with is just a blank face for a menu.

I’m not expecting characters on the same level as mass effect with starfield, but I’m hoping for something.