First Encounters is the sequel to Frontier (1993), which itself was a sequel to the seminal 1984 game Elite. The game was created by David Braben’s company, Frontier Developments. Many fans of the game refer to it by the shortened title of FFE.

Like Frontier, First Encounters features realistic Newtonian physics and the ability to land on planets. It has graphics that are an improvement over Frontier (the main difference being Gouraud shading) and, as well as employing the same open-ended gameplay of its predecessors, it also features a storyline concerning an alien race called the Thargoids.

Like the other two Elite games, it has been re-released as shareware and can be freely downloaded from the Elite Club site.

Being a DOS game, First Encounters has difficulty running with Windows XP or Windows 2000 machines, although the official site does offer solutions to get the game running. A recreated game engine called JJFFE allows playing the game on Linux, Windows and DOS.

First Encounters plays much like its immediate predecessor Frontier: the game is a combination of trading, fighting and a variety of other activitiesâ€â€