Frontier Developments have announced Elite Dangerous console development is cancelled so they can focus on its original PC release.

“Over the last several months, we have been wrestling with the best way to move forward, and it is with a heavy heart we have decided to cancel all console development,” Frontier founder and CEO David Braben said in a new development update.

While this means the console versions of the spacefaring MMO game are effectively put on permanent maintenance mode, that doesn’t mean they’re being unplugged.

“We need to be able to move forward with the story of the game, and in order for us to do this we need to focus on a single codebase,” Braben explained. “Elite Dangerous will continue on console as it is now together with critical updates, but we will focus on new content updates on PC on the post-Odyssey codebase.”

The launch of Elite Dangerous’ ambitious “Odyssey” expansion released last year was apparently received poorly from fans, so the developer is shifting up development in a big way.

“It’s no secret that Odyssey’s launch was less than ideal, including the need to split the PC/console player base to focus on a PC-only launch,” Braben said. “Since Odyssey’s release in May 2021, we have worked tirelessly to improve the Odyssey experience on PC, and whilst we have made great progress there is still more to be done. We have been supporting the pre-Odyssey and post-Odyssey codebases since.”

“We appreciate this news is not what our console community were hoping for,” Braben said in closing. “This was not an easy decision to make, but it was made with the long-term future of Elite Dangerous in mind.”

Elite Dangerous: Odyssey is available for Windows PC (via the Frontier Store, Epic Games Store, and Steam), while the base game is available on Xbox One and PlayStation 4.