This game didn't look like anything beyond the other spacecraft minecraft clones, but this definitely makes it a lot more interesting.
Elite: Dangerous is releasing their much anticipated "3rd season" next month as well, which will include explorable, realistic planets and a host of other features. It's an exciting time for virtual exploration.
They had destructible physics from the start, so I think that made them much more than just a blocky clone.
Since then they've added a lot programable (you can run code inside the game) or automated objects to the game which let you do way more than you can in pretty much any building/survival game
Still suffers from Everyone-has-to-run-their-own-server syndrome that the genre seems stuck with, so stability and gameplay can vary drastically
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