Frontier: Elite II
1993 · Space Trading / Simulation · Amiga / Atari ST
Overview
Frontier: Elite II (1993) is David Braben's sequel to Elite, a plotless space game with Newtonian flight and planets and star systems at true scale.
Deep Dive
The game begins in 3200 with a grandchild of Commander Jameson, 100 credits and an Eagle fighter, amid a tense cease-fire between the Federation and the Empire. With no plot and no way to win, the player trades, takes missions or turns pirate. Ships obey Newtonian physics, so momentum has to be cancelled to stop.
Developer Story
Braben developed and designed it, with Chris Sawyer helping port the code to 80286 assembly and music by David Lowe. It came out in October 1993 for the Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS, and sold about 500,000 copies. CU Amiga gave it 97%.
Did You Know?
- It was the first game to use procedurally generated star systems.
- Manual-based copy protection came as police spot-checks: three wrong answers meant arrest.
Sources & further reading
- Frontier: Elite II — Wikipedia
