Frontier: First Encounters

Released in Easter 1995, "First Encounters" was well reviewed, despite being released by its publisher before the development team thought it was ready.

"First Encounters" also had a number of firsts to its name. The detailed modelling of the geography of the planets had still probably not been surpassed until Elite Dangerous: Horizons in 2015, despite the relative lack of power of the target PCs at the time – i.e. Intel 386 machines. It was the first game to use procedural texturing to generate the vegetation, snow, etc. on the planet surfaces. Mountain ranges, cliffs and wonderful alien landscapes and atmospheric effects all contributed to the atmosphere of the game, and the coloured lighting (possibly also a first) from the redder stars gave some planets an eerie look.