Watch Elite: Dangerous' CEO Explain Piracy, Exploration, and Bounty Hunting

If you're still having a hard time wrapping your head around what space sim Elite: Dangerous is, the above video should help.

In the 30-minute presentation at EGX 2014, Frontier Developments CEO David Braben walks us through some of the core concepts in Elite: Dangerous as they appear in Beta 2. You'll see some basic ship combat, docking with stations, and Braben explains emergent gameplay scenarios involving piracy, trading, and bounty hunting.

For example, Braben explained how a current event in the game's Eranin system has escalated to a civil war, with players taking sides by smuggling guns to the rebels or supporting the existing communist government there. "Hopefully you'll see that this is just the tip of the iceberg, because one of the things that comes with Beta 2 is news feeds, where in the game you see the game building, you see news coming in and you may even feature in those news feeds with your character."

In an interview with Eurogamer, Braben said that he's still confident that Elite: Dangerous will come out in 2014, even if it doesn't have an exact release date yet. Braben also said that at the moment, he doesn't plan to release the game via Steam.

You can start playing the game right now by buying your way into the beta for $75, which will get you the Mercenary edition as well. For more on Elite: Dangerous, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.