Frontier: Elite 2

Frontier: Elite 2 is, of course, the sequel to Elite and it continues in much the same way. You have a ship and limited funds, and nowhere to go but out into space. Trade, fight, hunt criminals, work for the various governments, anything goes in Frontier. There are few, if any, limits on what you can do or where you can go.

Released: 1 October 1993
Platforms: Amiga Amiga 1200 Amiga CD32 Atari ST Atari ST/STE MS-DOS
Genres: Action Adventure Flight simulation Simulation Space trading and combat
Developers: GameTek
Publishers: GameTek
Series: Elite
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: First person
Themes: Action Science fiction Open world
Country: United Kingdom
Entry: #2 in Elite
Time to beat: 300hcompletionist
Composers: David Lowe

About

Frontier: Elite II is a space trading and combat simulator video game written by David Braben and published by GameTek and Konami in October 1993 for the Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS. It is the first sequel to the seminal game Elite from 1984. The game retains the open-ended gameplay of Elite, and adds realistic physics and an accurately modelled galaxy.

Frontier: Elite II had a number of firsts to its name. It was the first game to feature procedurally generated star systems. These were generated by the game aggregating the mass of material within an early solar system into planets and moons that obey the laws of physics, but which have slightly randomised material distribution in order to ensure each system's uniqueness.

›Story

After the death of Commander Peter Jameson, his grandchildren inherit an Eagle Long Range Fighter and 100 credits each. His final message welcomes them to life on the Frontier, where they are free to forge their own path across a vast, dangerous galaxy. They may become traders, miners, mercenaries, bounty hunters - or pirates - while navigating the rival powers of the Federation, Empire, and Independents. With their piloting and combat skills tested to the limit, they must seek their fortune, explore the galaxy, and above all, remain wary.

Keywords

pirates
procedural generation
spaceship
flight
espionage
slavery
mining
vector graphics
pop culture reference
black market
planet jumping
planet

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

There is no plot within Frontier, nor are there pre-scripted missions (as there are in the sequel First Encounters). Instead, players explore space while trading legally or illegally, carrying out missions for the military, ferrying passengers from system to system, engaging in piracy or any combination of the above. As a consequence, Frontier cannot be completed or "won", and players instead decide what to aspire to and set out to achieve it.

In Frontier, the player begins in the year 3200 and assumes the role of one of Commander Jameson's grandchildren, having inherited one hundred credits and an Eagle Long Range Fighter from him. By the game's standards, these are very modest resources, and are intended as a spur to encourage players to earn money by whatever means they feel is appropriate.

Development

Braben originally programmed the game in 68000 assembly language. It had roughly 250,000 lines of code, which were ported from 68000 assembly to 80286 assembly by Chris Sawyer. Frontier was the only game at the time to do a palette-fit every frame to get best use of colours. It also has 1:1 scale planets and star systems.

Elite II was originally slated to be released in November 1992 for the Atari ST.

Reception

The official Frontier website puts sales at about 500,000 copies sold. Braben received royalties for 350,000 copies.

Frontier received near-universal critical acclaim by the media. Most magazines were awestruck by its sheer scale and accurate depiction of real-world physics, and gave it high ratings. Computer Gaming World in April 1994 favorably discussed the game's "ENORMOUS universe" with "many, many hours of exploratory game play ... less of a game, and more a way of life".

Legacy

Frontier was succeeded in April 1995 by the MS-DOS-only First Encounters. Amiga 1200 and CD32 versions were planned and previewed in magazines, but cancelled. A third sequel, Elite Dangerous was semi-crowdfunded through a Kickstarter campaign and released on 16 December 2014.

Circa 2005, Tom Morton reverse engineered a platform-neutral C version of Frontier, called glFrontier making the game natively and fast playable on modern OSes.