Play Elite Online
You haggle for cargo in grimy spaceports, then white-knuckle through pirate ambushes—one wrong jump and your ship’s scrap metal. That radar glitch still means run.
Elite came out in 1984 for MS-DOS, developed by David Braben and Ian Bell. It was one of those games that felt genuinely new for its time, a space trading and combat sim that didn't hold your hand or limit your ambition. You got a ship, some credits, and a whole galaxy to figure out on your own.
You pilot a Cobra Mk III, trading goods between systems, fighting off pirates, and slowly upgrading your ship with better weapons and a larger cargo hold. The main goal is simply to survive and build your reputation, moving from Harmless to Elite. Key mechanics include navigating through wireframe 3D space, managing a finite amount of fuel for hyperspace jumps, and engaging in Newtonian dogfights where momentum matters. The pacing is slow and deliberate; mistakes are costly, and death means starting over from scratch. It feels like being truly alone in the void, where every credit earned and every laser blast fired is a product of your own careful planning or desperate improvisation.
Each game uses different controls, most DOS games use the keyboard arrows. Some will use the mouse , "Alt" ,"Enter" and "Space bar".
Download Elite ROM
You can download this ROM to play Elite offline using an MS-DOS emulator (Top Emulators).
*This ROM is provided for backup and educational purposes only.
