Enlarge / Looking up at the TRAPPIST-1 system’s M8 star. (credit: Frontier Developments)

More than two years after its official release back in December 2014, spaceship simulator Elite: Dangerous continues to grow and add content. The latest update is called “The Commanders,” and it bumps the game’s version number to 2.3 (or 1.8, if you’re not running the “Horizons” expansion). There are plenty of new features in 2.3, including a vastly updated camera system for taking in-game images or movies; a “commander creator” feature for players to create and customize their avatars; and the ability to join friends on their ships and fly as a single crew.

But one feature will be showing up as a last-minute addition: the newly discovered TRAPPIST-1 star system, complete with its seven exoplanets, will become part of the game’s simulated galaxy.

NASA broke the news about the discovery only days before the 2.3 update was set to enter semi-open (pay wall) beta testing among the Elite: Dangerous player base. Between that announcement and some last-minute bugs, publisher and developer Frontier decided to slip the beta date from February 23 to February 27 to try to add bug fixes and the TRAPPIST-1 system to the game. The bad news is that the newly discovered exoplanets won’t make it into Monday’s beta release; the good news is that TRAPPIST-1 will be in the second beta release, which will come some days or weeks after the initial beta.