Frontier: First Encounters

First Encounters is the successor of the Games Frontier and Elite. The game was developed by Frontier Developments, headed by David Braben and published in 1995 by GameTek for DOS.

First Encounters took over the proven gameplay of its predecessors. The player assumes the role of a spaceship captain and can explore the game universe free. Optionally, one operates as a bounty hunter, hired killer, dealer or performs courier flights for espionage organizations. The initial phase has, however, unlike Frontier significantly shortened, it is now relatively quickly move on to the interesting part of the game.

The title, however, contained in appearance yet many serious errors and was able to convince neither fans nor critics. Only months after the release of the game GameTek was able to offer a largely corrected version. But despite all the problems a total of over 100,000 copies were sold.

The former version of the game can now be downloaded from the Elite Clubs page as shareware. Because this is a DOS game, it is not capable of running easily on modern computers. However, there are open source ports with smaller unofficial patches from independent programmers for modern platforms such as MacOS, Linux and Windows XP. The ports are free, but is still the shareware fee to the elite club to be paid.

Differences Frontier

• Extension of the ship's pools to new types
• Package increase the range by 50 %
• Implementation of a real, albeit optional course of action
• Slight visual changes