You can play Elite Dangerous multiplayer suite Arena for free this weekend

Who wants to get in a spaceship and blow up some other spaceships? Yeahhhh!

Here is some excellent news for those suffering the twin evils of ennui and lack of free cash flow: Elite Dangerous developer Frontier is offering access to the space sim's multiplayer suite at no cost this weekend.

That's right, navigate over to Elite Dangerous Arena on either Steam or the Frontier store, and place it in your library at the princely sum of zero cash money. Then simply wait the endless eternity that seems to spawn between the acquisition of a new game and its installation, and a galaxy of blowing up other players can be yours.

The free weekend runs through 6:00pm BST July 11, and Frontier would quite like it if any of you experienced commanders would care to come smash the freeloading newbs to pieces. It didn't put it like that, of course; it said "jump in now to show them the ropes and take advantage of the unique benefits that reaching prestige rank in Arena can bring to your main game account".

What's this prestige business? Apparently once you hit CQC Rank 50 you can prestige your account, sacrificing all your unlocks in return for increased credit earnings in the core game, Reaching Prestige Rank 9 means you'll be earning the most cash possible. Additionally, when you prestige you receive "a permit to the Attilius Orbital starport in CD-4311917 where you’ll get exclusive discounts on many modules and ships". Cool, yeah.