I really don’t know what about the game right now or on their next couple years of roadmap can be considered next-gen at all.
They have some higher polygon assets but I think that the engine itself is really showing the fact that it’s last gen.
The ‘universe’ is still a single solar system run in 50 player maximum instances.
There’s no persistence of the universe state. It just boots up fresh in the instance.
Player/Ship persistence is minimal when it works.
Missions are, at best, 20 year old bog standard mmo fetch quests.
AI is really bad for ships and humans.
None of the aliens are in the game.
None of the capital ships are in the game.
Leaving aside all the bugs and missing features, I literally can’t think of a single thing in this game that hasn’t been done in a finished game.
Saying that they will someday deliver revolutionary things doesn’t mean that there’s anything in the game that is actually new.