After an hour straight of exploration in pure, uninterrupted solitude, I put down the controller and asked myself, "What on earth am I doing with my time?" I'd started a new save of Elite: Dangerous with the Horizons expansion that recently shipped. It predominately added the ability to "journey seamlessly from space to explore the surfaces of accurately simulated 1:1 scale planets and moons" throughout Frontier's virtual recreation of the Milky Way.

I was exploring Baker's Prospect, the moon base that functions as the default spawning location in Horizons. A mission on the station claimed that a pilot had crashed on the rocky wastes, and had only a few hours left to live. But I'd been driving around in my SRV, zooming my scanner in and out, searching for an asphyxiating NPC. After a full hour, I discovered nothing. No pilot, no rocks to mine, no extra bases, nothing. Just the cold, soulless solitude that Elite: Dangerous has to offer.

This is the problem.

Video: Elite: Dangerous will let players to roam planets in the Horizons update on December 15. It's coming to PC first, but will arrive on the Xbox One down the line. The game's coming to PS4 eventually, too. The expansion is pricey: $US60 ($83) for new players (base game + expansion), $US45 ($62) if you already own the game.

Own the PC of the Gods? A machine so powerful it commands its own electronic pantheon? Well, it is but a trembling peasant in the face of Elite: Dangerous' minimum specs for VR. Surely they can't be that bad? Muwhahahahahahahahaha...