Frontier - First Encounters

Year 1995, Frontier: First Encounters sits on the table and I spend the next six hours trying to take off from the landing pad without smashing my ship into the hangar ceiling. The third installment in the Elite series — foolishly renamed "Elite 3" in the Czech market at the time — was one of the most ambitious space simulators around back then. Unfortunately, also one of the most painfully released.

First Encounters follows up on Frontier: Elite II from 1993 and sticks to the same philosophy: infinite galaxy, free movement, no fixed story pulling you by the nose. You sit in the cockpit, get a ship, and the entire universe is your problem. Want to trade, ferry passengers, hunt bounties, mine asteroids, or just wander from system to system? That's up to you. The game won't hand you a quest log. It'll give you physics and economics.

The mechanics are raw and unforgiving. Newtonian physics means you actually have to brake with your ship, or you'll overshoot your target like a stone. Autopilot helps, but the reliability of the older version of the game — which launched with serious bugs — could ruin even the calmest landing maneuvers. The docking sequence is a mix of concentration and prayer. Battles are fast and merciless. Anyone expecting an arcade shooter had already returned the box before dinner.

What I remember most vividly about First Encounters isn't any particular mission. It's that feeling of emptiness between the stars — jumping into hyperspace, silence, then a new system on the radar. In 1995, nobody else offered anything on this scale. The game launched half-baked, unfortunately: GameTek pushed for release, the code was unstable, and players essentially got a beta version. Developer David Braben never fully denied it. Patches improved things, but the reputation was tarnished.

Today the game suits one specific type of person — someone who wants to experience where the DNA of games like Elite Dangerous comes from, and who has patience for a steep learning curve without tutorials. You can run it in your browser via DOSBox emulation without much hassle. Just expect to spend the first hour reading the manual and the second figuring out why the customs patrol just vaporized you. That comes with the territory.