Elite: Dangerous reaches £1.25 million funding goal near end of Kickstarter drive

The Kickstarter campaign for Elite: Dangerous is a success, having reached its £1.25 million ($2.03 million) funding goal today with just over two days left in the pledge drive.

Elite: Dangerous creator David Braben of Frontier Developments, who co-wrote and co-developed the original Elite with Ian Bell and released it in 1984, thanked the backers on Twitter, saying, "It is truly exciting, touching, and really wonderful." As of this writing, more than 21,000 people have contributed £1,263,242 to the project.

The 60-day Kickstarter campaign will end at 7 p.m. ET Friday, Jan. 4, giving Frontier exactly 50 more hours to pull in as much additional funding as possible. The project's stretch goals consist of a Mac version at £1.4 million and 10 additional playable ships at £1.5 million.

Elite: Dangerous is set for release on Windows PC in March 2014. If the first stretch goal is reached, a Mac version would be available approximately three months after the launch of the PC version.