Frontier Developments has surprised its fanbase with an announcement that their first expansion to their current frontline title Elite Dangerous will be free as of the 27th of October. The expansion known as Horizons was Elite’s first major content update bringing the ability for planetary landings and see the milky way from a completely different angle.

Along with landing on the planets, the update saw the release of the SRV Scarab ground vehicle which allowed players to drive around the surface of the planets they had once only viewed from space and mine, explore and even attack small compounds.

Horizons also brought new missions, weapon crafting via engineers, ship-launched fighters and a new multi-crew function for some of the larger ships. All of these together completely changed the game for the player base adding much-appreciated complexity to the massively multiplayer space simulator.

Frontier Developments also understand that over the last four years many people have spent money on the expansion and want to thank them with a new “Azure ship paint job compatible with ALL ships currently in-game.” Currently, the large majority of paint jobs for your ships in Elite are bought with a premium currency so giving players the opportunity to bling out their ships for free is a nice little thank you for their early adoption of the game’s updates.

Frontier has stated that Horizons will be on sale up until the 26th of October in case anyone wanted to secure those slick paint jobs.

Elite Dangerous is currently available on Steam, PS4 and XBOX ONE for £19.99