Frontier: First Encounters

First Encounters carried over the gameplay features from its immediate predecessor Frontier: Elite II, in that the game is a combination of trading, fighting, espionage, bombing and a variety of other military activities; the combat ratings were also carried over from the previous games. 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. The game's graphics were an improvement on the previous game, introducing Gouraud shading and more extensive use of texture mapping. As well as employing the same open-ended gameplay of its predecessors, First Encounters also features a storyline which takes the player through a series of events starting with the "Wiccan Ware Race" and missions concerning an alien race called the Thargoids.

Some of these missions can only be completed under specific circumstances, or with specific combat ratings. The missions take place between 3250 (the start-date of the game) and approximately 3255.

Braben was the project leader and worked on shapes. The story was made by Braben and Manda Scott. There were 8 programmers among which were Braben and Chris Sawyer.

First Encounters was well reviewed, despite being released before the development team thought it was ready. While the game employed an advanced and realistic Newtonian mechanics flight model, rather than the original arcade-style engine, many players found it frustratingly difficult, particularly in combat. In a negative review, Computer Game Review's Tasos Kaiafas wrote, "If another Elite is planned for the future, this baby should be thrown out the window with the bath water." According to Frontier Developments the game shipped around 100,000 units.