Elite: Dangerous will be rolling out a co-op mode next month when the Wings update enters beta in early March.
The new feature will allow up to four players to band together in the huge Elite sandbox, taking down bounties, mining, committing acts of piracy.
"Players will be able to share lots of feedback across the wing-who is targeting who, hull and shield statuses, etc.-and more easily follow each other in and out of Super Cruise," Elite's lead designer, Sandro Sammarco in an interview with PC Gamer.
Players will be able to share bounties, but there'll also be increased challenges on offer for co-op teams: "In 1.2, players will start to see larger, more dangerous signal sources, where single ships would be at serious risk," Sammarco explained. "Those signal sources will be perfect battlegrounds for coordinated squadrons, and they'll find the rewards-in terms of bounties and cargo-will be suitably elevated in line with the challenge."
Players within a wing will each have equal footing, they'll be able to play separately and do their own thing, and players will also be able follow other players into super cruise when moving between systems.