| Console: | PC |
| TV Standard: | Other |
| Release Date: | 1970-01-01 |
| Players: | 1 |
| Co-op: | No |
| ESRB: | M - Mature 17+ |
| Type: | Adventure, Construction and Management Simulation, Sandbox, Flight Simulator |
Frontier: First Encounters is a space trading and combat simulator video game developed by Frontier Developments. It was the first game to use procedural texturing to generate the vegetation, snow and other features on the planet surfaces. Mountain ranges, cliffs and alien landscapes and visual effects all contributed to the atmosphere of the game.
Like Elite II, First Encounters features realistic Newtonian physics, the ability to seamlessly land on 1:1 scale planets in authentic 1:1 scale star systems, and rival factions for which the player can perform missions, gaining or losing standing accordingly.
Comparing First Encounters to earlier games in the series, creator David Braben said that where the original Elite was "basically just trading" and Elite II positioned the trading as "something to do while doing missions", the developers had done "almost no work" expanding the trading for First Encounters, as it was not seen as the focus of the game. The player's objective is instead to explore, have fun and "find out what's happening with the aliens", although how they achieve this would depend on how they played the game.
