Even though 2020 may be well behind us, its impact is going to be felt in the gaming industry for a long time to come. The latest example of this is Elite Dangerous: Odyssey whose release date has now been pushed back due to the pandemic throwing a wrench into its development.

As such, the PC version of Odyssey will be launching in late spring of 2021, while the PlayStation and Xbox release will follow in autumn of 2021. If you're more eager to get your hands on Odyssey, it's also worth mentioning that there will be an alpha test in early spring. This will be a proper alpha with missing and unpolished features, however, so I'd recommend only diving in if you're looking to help the developers out and give some much needed feedback.

"2020 was a difficult year for many, but in spite of those challenges we are pleased with our progress towards what is a truly ambitious new era for the game," reads the brief update. "The ongoing impact of the pandemic however, including the renewed lockdowns in 2021, continues to put added pressure on our teams and ultimately our development timeline. We have therefore had to make the difficult decision to make some adjustments and changes to our existing development roadmap."

"Our PC plans have only been affected by a small amount, however our plans for the console release will unfortunately see a larger development shift. Please do know that these difficult decisions have been made with a focus on making Odyssey as incredible as it can possibly be for all our Commanders regardless of their platform, while also respecting realistic project deadlines for our teams during this difficult global situation."

"Throughout this time we will continue to bring more news, videos and content of the development in progress. We would like to thank you all for the ongoing support and we are very excited to bring in this new era to the game with you. Your feedback, support and involvement is a vital part of this process and we are looking forward to a shared Alpha experience, which will be touching down very soon."

Once a proper release date gets announced I'll make sure to let you know. Until then, you can learn a little bit more about this delay over at the Elite Dangerous website.