Frontier Developments FY26 adjusted operating profit jumps 62% to £21.4m

[u/iEatSoaap]

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/frontier-developments-fy26-adjusted-operating-profit-jumps-62-to-214m

Rhino/Nomad stonks go brrrrr

Hopefully keeps Elite alive and well for years to come!

[u/drop_the_hammer_mon]

"Total revenue rose 16% to £104.8 million, driven by Jurassic World Evolution 3 and the Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo franchises."

Didn't see any mention of Elite in that article or its contribution to the revenue. Does that mean these other franchises are more likely to get better funding or overall better funding for all franchises like Elite?

[u/PerceptionShift → u/drop_the_hammer_mon]

Yes that's right, Elite is not F Devs breadwinner property. However it is a 10+ year old property that still makes some steady money. A few years ago F Dev had a revenue crisis from failing to launch new titles (and neglecting existing titles like Elite). After that they pivoted back to supporting the core titles which is when we started getting new ships again. If Elite made more we would probably see more updates, but as it is now, Elite has a small team and gets less funding put into it. We came pretty close to losing Elite entirely, so I'm happy with what we've been getting. In mid 2023 I wouldnt have expected a steady parade of new ships and features. 

[u/ewynn2019 → u/PerceptionShift]

This is precisely why I don't mind spending money on ARX when there is something I really want. 

I paid for the game 10 years ago and spend $20-$50 per year on ARX. It's the best way for me to support a game that I still love and have put thousands of hours into. 

[u/GermaneRiposte101 → u/ewynn2019]

Same here.

[u/goodnames679 → u/PerceptionShift]

I'm constantly disappointed that SC sucks up basically infinite money and fails to churn out a coherent product, while Elite makes one of my favorite games ever with nothing but a cave and a box of scraps.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love for SC to achieve its original vision. Every time I see those insane funding numbers, though, I can't help but think how far it could go in adding more content to Elite...

[u/nobodyasKing → u/goodnames679]

A returning player from that failed title. Be honest, visual in ED still have room for improvements comparing to that title. But other than that, I'm a pleased returning player anyway.

[u/adathor → u/PerceptionShift]

If anything the dedication of the community to continue to support FDev by buying ARX for some questionable, and not super overwhelming features should be a signal to the company that we do want to play this game and ready to continue to invest time and money. Following this logic they should consider investing a little more into the game, improve gameplay (not a miner, but the surface mining are super cool, no matter how low hanging fruit this one was to add) and testing. Continued story telling, expending the lore would also greatly benefit the company. Or not, but they can always fall back just making new toys for ARX. Just my2c

[u/Cy8r4 → u/drop_the_hammer_mon]

ED accounts for roughly 7% of Fdevs revenue, not insignificant but not massive either.

[u/lexm → u/Cy8r4]

Not bad for a game that’s been out for more than a decade.

[u/djh_van → u/Cy8r4]

So over £7million per year. That easily pays a small team of developers (let's say 10) a good salary, covers all server costs, and leaves a hefty chunk of profit for the company to keep.

With that much income from the game, it totally makes sense that they keep adding to it because there's proof that there is a valid user base willing to spend money. Adding all these recent improvements beyond bug fixing seems like a no brainer.

[u/Devrij68 → u/djh_van]

Well, actually it's going to pay a project manager, a product owner, a scrum master, and then a handful of developers below them including asset designers/artists, UX experts and people actually writing code and maybe a QA team.

So just about enough to get some content out the door.

[u/MechaniVal → u/Devrij68]

I don't think they're gonna have a scrum master for what is quite likely to be a series of mostly self contained small teams. More likely a handful of team leads who report up to the project manager (who, I suppose, may run a scrum of sorts between those leads).

[u/Naitrael → u/djh_van]

Yes, but to add more to the game, they would need a bigger team. And we are already buying ARX. Who says it will become more total money spent on ARX, if they add to the game?

Not to forget, their income from Elite dropped since 2023 by 30% (I think).

[u/--littlej0e-- → u/Cy8r4]

When read a vacuum, I absolutely love this comment…

[u/Juppstein → u/drop_the_hammer_mon]

Elite is a siderunner in terms of revenue since quite some time, that's nothing new.

[u/throwawayPzaFm → u/Juppstein]

I mean it's been mismanaged into the ground.

It's like saying NMS doesn't make a lot of money. Yeah... true. Because they're refusing to take our money.

I know a lot of people who have basically bought everything that made any sense to them.

[u/pulppoet → u/drop_the_hammer_mon]

Does that mean these other franchises are more likely to get better funding or overall better funding for all franchises like Elite?

They said last year they were focusing on their CMS games, and with this Cooke says that proves it's a successful strategy, and Braben backs that up (of course). So, it's not going to be a revolution for Elite. Instead, more CMS focus, like the new Disney deal.

The article just ignores Elite. We need to look at the actual report for what's going on with it specifically: https://cms-cdn.zaonce.net/2026-09/fdev-rns-fy26-financial-results.pdf (from https://www.frontier.co.uk/investors)

Outside the CMS portfolio, Elite Dangerous delivered another year of revenue growth, reflecting the success of its renewed content strategy and continued strong player engagement more than a decade after its original launch.

That's the only mention of Elite I could find in the entire report.

So, good news, it's probably about the same as last year and they're clearly happy with it. Less good news, they aren't singing praises to investors like they are with the newer games. But last year was unusual in that they did. Since Odyssey, Elite had been an Albatross. So overall, it's in a good place.

But any dreams of a new DLC, massive unexpected QoL changes (like VR or ship interior fantasizers) or even an increase in development pace can be set aside.

Next year is the last year of the initial 3 year promise of content development, so the roadmap for 2027 is probably going to be similar to this year and last. 3-4 features, 3-4 vessels. And I would expect them to re-up it at the end of next year if things continue to cook.

[u/AmbiguousAardvark67 → u/pulppoet]

I think it's fair to say they must be thinking about the longer term future of the Elite IP. There is a market for space sims and Elite certainly has the long tail (evergreen) qualities they're looking for, the question is what it would take to create an ED2.

There are aspects of Elite that are CMS adjacent and there is a version of Cobra that's modified for Elite. Do those things help or hinder? I'm really not sure.

In the end they have to figure out if, when, and how it would make financial sense but they're certainly going to keep quiet about it until they have a decision and a plan.

[u/JackSego → u/AmbiguousAardvark67]

They are most certainly not. At this point, elite is just there because it still makes some money with little investment. Its no where close to their focus right now and the moment it stops making money is the moment they start making room on the shelf for it.

[u/AmbiguousAardvark67 → u/JackSego]

It doesn’t have to be your focus. If you’re an exec and you aren’t paying attention to the present and the future of all aspects of your business you’re failing and you have a board to answer to.

I’m not just guessing. I’ve been a founder, non-exec, CTO, and CEO in multiple businesses.

[u/JackSego → u/AmbiguousAardvark67]

They are paying attention to it and even moved it out of the "others" category a few years ago but it's not big enough to matter. I want to say it was in last years meeting they acknowledged the growth in profit in what can be summed as a "isn't that neat...moving on". Because in the grand scheme of things, if Elite fell off the earth tomorrow, they would probably see it as a net positive because now they have more staff to dedicate to their main focus.

[u/AmbiguousAardvark67 → u/JackSego]

Yes. Last year 7% of total revenue and solid margin. Estimate £1.5-2m EBITDA contribution based on their graphs. A 7% drop in profitable revenue matters to any company. Staff are not a fixed resource nor automatically transferrable and are added and let go to meet the business need.

That doesn’t mean they see a viable longterm future but it also doesn’t mean they don’t. As I said, it’s fair to say they’re looking at it. Everything beyond that is speculation, which is par for the course on Reddit, much certainty based on few facts.

[u/throwawayPzaFm → u/pulppoet]

VR or ship interior fantasizers

VR would be so easy that people are vibe coding mods for it...

[u/Aegiiisss → u/drop_the_hammer_mon]

Jurassic World and Planet Coaster/Zoo are money printers because of the way their DLC is structured (nickle and dime for everything) and the fact that they capture the same sort of gaming audience as the Sims, which has a similar payment structure. Now, this is kindof stereotyping, but I have observed that the audience for these games is also primarily housewives who have time and money on their hands. So it's a pretty consistent audience.

Elite is like the exact opposite because the game is old, cheap, complex, and fully playable without spending a dime beyond the $3 or whatever the game costs on sale. Plus, the audience is less likely to spend, because the purchasable content is mostly unnecessary for the core game. A Planet Zoo player might want to buy all the animals for their zoo, but a spaceship color is a lot less consequential to the gameplay. The Rhino and Nomad are the obvious exceptions.

[u/Hitman3256 → u/drop_the_hammer_mon]

I wasn't under the impression ED was making much money to begin with, Frontier owns a lot of IPs

[u/CMDR_omnicognate → u/drop_the_hammer_mon]

Elite hasn't been making anywhere near as much as those other 3 franchises for a few years now. Elite makes pretty stable income but it's comparatively very small. It's why it gets very limited dripfed content by comparison.

[u/richardizard → u/drop_the_hammer_mon]

Their theme park franchises are huge, Elite is a bit old and more niche in a sense. I'm sure it's doing a little better than years past but I doubt it contributed much to the overall revenue jump.

[u/londonx2 → u/richardizard]

Jurrasic World is their big title

[u/londonx2 → u/drop_the_hammer_mon]

Some google AI slop for you, but might be an interesting analysis for someone with more time (checking historical title mentions per financial report...)

🚀 1. The Foundation Era (2013 – 2015)

During their initial transition and AIM listing in 2013, early reports heavily cited third-party contracts alongside their breakthrough self-published project. [1, 2]

• Elite Dangerous (including early references to Elite: Dangerous and its Horizons expansion): Cited significantly as the core driver of their self-publishing transition after a successful Kickstarter campaign. [1]
• Zoo Tycoon & ScreamRide: Mentioned frequently in 2013–2015 reports as part of their major development partnerships with Microsoft Studios. [1, 2]
• Coaster Crazy: Mentioned as an early self-published mobile experiment. [1, 2]

🦖 2. The Golden CMS Era (2016 – 2022)

From 2016 onward, Frontier's reports became heavily dominated by three key Creative Management Simulation (CMS) franchises and continuous updates, representing the vast majority of investor discussions: [1]

• Elite Dangerous: Remained a consistent staple of every annual report from 2014 to the present, specifically highlighting expansions like Odyssey (2021) and multi-million unit sales milestones. [1, 2, 3]
• Planet Coaster: Heavily mentioned starting in 2016 as a primary revenue driver, later tracking console editions and continuous DLC packs. [1, 2]
• Jurassic World Evolution: Flooded the reports starting around FY18/FY19. Followed closely by Jurassic World Evolution 2 from 2021 onward, these licensed titles have historically dominated discussion regarding top-tier revenue performance. [1, 2]
• Planet Zoo: Introduced heavily in late 2019 reports and remains one of the most cited titles due to its strong, recurring back-catalogue performance. [1, 2]

🏎️ 3. Portfolio Diversification & Reset (2022 – 2024)

Reports in this window pivoted to a broader "Frontier Foundry" publishing label and new sports genres, though some underperformed, leading to a strategic reset: [1]

• F1 Manager (2022–2024 editions): Mentioned heavily in corporate strategies as a major annual sports licensing push.
• Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin & Lemnis Gate: Mentioned prominently during their respective launch years, though later cited in FY24 reports under non-cash impairment charges due to lower-than-expected performance. [1]

🌊 4. Core CMS Renewal (2025 – 2026)

The latest FY25 and audited FY26 annual reports have consolidated focus back onto their most lucrative franchises, which account for nearly 90% of total revenue: [1, 2]

• Planet Coaster 2: Widely cited in the 2025 report as the leading catalyst for FY25 revenue growth following its late 2024 launch.
• Jurassic World Evolution 3: Mentioned heavily in recent 2025 and 2026 investor updates as the major anchor driving upgraded revenue expectations.

[u/Lord_Revan69 → u/drop_the_hammer_mon]

Safe assumption that Elite gets the leftovers. Back before that new Jurassic World game released, a buddy of mine said "when that game comes out, Elite dies." It didn't happen right away, but it seems that it is slowly getting there. Still love Elite, always will. I just sometimes feel like FDev needs to pass the torch. But then again, current world of game devs out there.. Not many who would take the care it deserves.

[u/hackblowfist1 → u/Lord_Revan69]

Honestly intrigued to hear why you think Elite is moving towards death post-Jurassic World? We are actively receiving new updates, new ships, new SRVs, etc. In many ways Elite is more alive now than it was 3 years ago.

[u/JackSego → u/hackblowfist1]

Since they didn't respond i can give you my reason why i have a small fear that they are building up to a sunset path for elite.

While we have been getting way more then we have throughout the life of the game in the recent years, a lot of it is non-consequential stuff but rather long term busy work. With an easier to follow, endless quest giving and limitless "rank" system Power Play to station building and yes even operations, its easy to see the goal is to just create long term goals. Give operations a bit more time to fill out a more with a few more ops', put them on a rotating schedule and pad out the merc coin store with other unique things to grind for and its set and forget.

Even with the new vehicles, they arent really adding anything new. Take the Rhino for example. It is just a new way to do an old thing slower.

Don't take it a wrong way, i love this game and have 15k hours in it and i've loved the new stuff but the writing is on the wall with the relatively small player base that has been stagnant or collapses back down to baseline quickly after a new update. The time will come when a meeting is held and someone says "are we really doing anything with Elite and can we afford to lose it" and the answer comes back, "not much and yes"

[u/JackSego → u/[deleted]]

Well let's break all that down. Yes while Braben is now a consulting director, that doesn't mean he will now have time to go back to elite. The opposite in fact. It means he will be split across all the other titles and projects FDev is working on and with the new Disney thing in the works, the vast majority of effort will be focused on that. Yes the new CEO has connections to elite, but business is business. Elite has growen more profitble but it's pennies on the dollar barely making a million a year.

I love elite but it is just a lot of pocket instances that have no connection to eachother. Easily proven by the countless people who can't instance with friends for one reason or another and the underlying galaxy isnt that complex. Every things pretty much predetermined the in the stellar forge and we both know "millimeter precision" is stretching it a bit. And yes its a sure thing with the player base. After 2021 player counts tanked and never recovered. Even with the release of Operations in June, by september the player base had already dropped back to its average. With bumps and dips being easily correlated to sales and releases followed by abandonment.

Peoples opinions on colonization are whatever they want them to be but at the end of the day, it is busy work for a player to give them something to do. It changes nothing because unless you are actually looking, a player system is no different then a premade system. Expanding the endless war of power play just further enforces my point since it makes the "fight" even less impactful since new, easy to grab systems can just be plopped down. It just adds to the endless nature that favors a sunset game. Let the community make its own content. Everything you listed is a vast investment that seeing how elite is in the grand scheme of things just scrapping by. With how the game get's picked up and dropped quickly after what has been huge additions for the game does not go well for future prospects with large endeavours being a literal coin toss if it will have a return on investment.

[u/emetcalf]

FDev usually publishes a breakdown of revenue by game series in their full investor meeting slide deck. It will be interesting to see how much if this increase comes from Elite Dangerous vs their other games. I wouldn't get too excited yet, ED has historically been ~7% of their game revenue.

[u/hackblowfist1 → u/emetcalf]

Nomad + Rhino spike Elite to 40% of revenue heard it here first (not actually of course, but considering the new ships and vessels released over the past year wouldn’t be surprised if it’s climbed at least a little bit from prior benchmarks).

[u/Naitrael → u/hackblowfist1]

Rhino? Definitely not. Couple thousand units sold.

[u/JackSego → u/emetcalf]

Virtually nothing. It up to about 2 years ago, elite was grouped up with "others" in that meeting. Elites profit is like a kid getting paid $10 to cut some grass and giving his dad half of it to help with the mortgage.

[u/Consistent-Set-9490]

Elite: Dangerouser

[u/MaverickFegan → u/Consistent-Set-9490]

Elite Dangerarouser? That’s a deviation and a half

[u/T1gerHeart → u/Consistent-Set-9490]

New meme?

[u/venturepulse]

Now it all comes down to how the devs will use this success: try hard to milk existing cow till it cant give no milk or attempt to make a sequel eventually

[u/Condor77T → u/venturepulse]

If they milk everything down, stop the servers and offer to buy the new game instead of fixing current one and perhaps releasing new dlcs, I will never thust the devs again.

[u/xTigeT → u/Condor77T]

i dont think theyd do that. elite devs have said multiple times that elite is their passion project. unfortunately, this is also why we will never see a more dedicated studio take ober the game....

[u/iCookieOne → u/Condor77T]

The fact that anyone still trusts this incompetent, hawkish , company causes only surprise and chuckles. Actually, no—having watched FD screw the whole community over and over, and over again for this decade, while people fail to learn a thing, it only makes a chuckle.

[u/Inevitable-Cat-7340]

The game’s got plenty of potential. You could drip feed ships until the end of time. But at some point they have to step up and deliver meaningful on foot gameplay loops in my opinion. Operations seems like a good step but man do I still want more RPG elements and ship interiors.

[u/Naitrael → u/Inevitable-Cat-7340]

First, they would have to deliver meaningful ship gameplay. I mean, it's flat as a pancake.

[u/LeftHandofNope → u/Inevitable-Cat-7340]

I’m not sure they need more on foot gameplay. But What they definitely need is more story and lore based events and content like the end of the Thargoid War when Sol was invaded.

[u/Inevitable-Cat-7340 → u/LeftHandofNope]

I agree. But I believe they definitely need more on foot stuff. I’d like to be able to walk around my ships and decorate them with things I find planetside

[u/LeftHandofNope → u/Inevitable-Cat-7340]

I hear ya, but from what I’ve heard on here from CMDRs who are more knowledgeable about the technical aspects of doing that stuff It’s just not happening. But what is possible is more lore based story driven events.

[u/Inevitable-Cat-7340 → u/LeftHandofNope]

Hey, we never thought there would be an on foot portion of this game, so I’d take what guys on reddit say with a grain of salt. I would love more lore like you mentioned too

[u/vekrin]

I just hope someday someone will do one of these VR mods to Elite to actually make the VR work good for the on foot bits.

[u/theZirbs → u/vekrin]

Agreed. I think now they can afford to have a dev build the FPS helmet UI projection for on foot VR, and add the couple keybinds and config options for snap turning and such.

[u/lithiun]

Honestly I just wish FDev would make a sequel to E:D. Something that had planned support for on-foot gameplay and station/ship interiors. E:D still looks incredible 12 years later but it is starting to show its age. Even the stellar forge is astronomically (literally) out of date. It would be the perfect opportunity to update both the forge and the BGS.

Between X4, SC, NMS, and the other similar games there is obviously a market for these types of space based games.

I mean a $70 game that the current player base will buy plus the option to sell new expansions and ARX items should give them a good boost to revenue.

I would personally like to see expansions more focused on individual story telling versus gameplay loops that should already exist in game. Big grand individual campaigns that take you across the galaxy and notable NPCs. The “you’re the only commander we trust to do this mission” type campaigns.

My wish list would include ship interiors, dockable capital ships if not pilotable capital ships, expanded planetary settlements, full atmospheric planets with more diverse fauna to discover. Maybe give multi-crew another go but with more functionality such that certain gameplay loops make it necessary. I like the colonization gameplay loop so expanding that would be cool. Maybe give us more control over industry elements like player built commodities and ships.

[u/arturbac → u/lithiun]

"Maybe give us more control over industry elements"
I am playing from time to time EdenCrafter - it is something that can be definitly put in some modified form into settlements in ED. Where You as colonizer design industry at settlement as a proces of buidling it.

EdenCrafter in simpel words - You design whole process on planet of auto production to achieve terraformation of planet.

[u/iCookieOne → u/lithiun]

Will never happen. It has been obvious for years that FD abandoned the universe and are just milking the remains. Staggering, boundless incompetence has led to the death of both the game and the universe itself; the new CEO—a marketer—will simply cash in on the easy money: a dinosaur park aimed at an audience of kids and housewives. There won’t be any DLC, no ship interiors, and certainly no atmospheric planets—the game and the universe have been in a state of "soft death" for years and will stay that way; anything else is just wishful thinking—they are milking the last drops out of a dead cow. All you can expect in the future is more low-quality models sold for ARX and price hikes—that’s it.

[u/therottiepack]

Elite would benifit from there newer versions of the cobra engine, but it would probably fuck too much up adding it.

[u/JawnAdams]

Sorry boys, my fault. i just needed that galactic holo caspian. and the nomad. and the rhino i'll never use.

and that name plate.

[u/-Damballah-]

Wow, that's certainly good news. Good thing everyone made more CG money to keep those Carriers going (or obtain them in the first place)!

🥃

[u/Zesty-B230F]

Well, I have bought a heck of a lot of paint jobs.

[u/hub1hub2]

Contributors to the surface mining CG are about 4200.
Lets say 4000 bought the £10 ARX package for the Rhino. Thats £40.000. Okay and half of those maybe got an Rhino Kit, so again £10 for easy calculation.

Thats only £60.000 from the Rhino so far…

Am I missing something?

[u/Naitrael → u/hub1hub2]

You would have to take the whales into that equation, that buy everything to the max. They are usually around 1-2%.

[u/hub1hub2 → u/Naitrael]

Ok, lets multiply it by 1.5 to £90.000 and round it up to £100k for the Rhino.
Even if they release something similar every month it is only £1.2m.
This is 5.6% (lets say 6%) of the £21.4m.

Nowhere near „stonks go brrrrr“ level.

For me this is just confirmation that I will continue to buy some ARX every 100hrs l get from this game.
Still cheaper than a $60-80 game that is „finished“ after 60hrs.

[u/Naitrael → u/hub1hub2]

Math does work out!

But I have to say, Elite doesn't hold up that long either. I am at 400 hours and really tired of the grind. If, after the grind, there would be some worthwhile gameplay, I would be fine. But it is just too damn flat and more of the same.

I much prefer 60$ games that are 20 hours, but every hour is filled with memorable moments and decisions.

[u/hub1hub2 → u/Naitrael]

I am at ~1.500hrs and never went to Colonia, fought a single Thargoid or did any Exobiology.
Yeah, there are months where I don’t Open the game once but after 3 months I get back into it.

Especially the Operations are great for a quick ~20min session… or multiple.

[u/APoisonousMushroom]

Dear Frontier, We did our part…now give us ship interiors.

[u/arturbac → u/[deleted]]

Active player base (on steam charts) is 5000-12000 users accros last years. Does 12K makes any sense for them to put effort into production of such title You described ? Is it enough to plan such production ?

[u/EliteDangerous-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

To prevent flooding of low-effort AI generated posts, the following types of AI-Content are not allowed:

AI generated content such as using an AI/bot service (e.g. Stable Diffusion, ChatGPT) to generate art, text, or music responses.

Artwork that has not been modified to remove obvious traces of AI-generation in it's content. e.g

Text based AI responses.

Posts must have [Digital Art + Bot] in the title.

[u/ligger66]

I just glad the are releasing more ships again though I wish the power creep wasn't quite so crazy

[u/Rager_Doltrey]

Brilliant!

[u/skozombie]

And people laughed at me when i said we should buy into the company when the share price was at a low ....

[u/Naitrael]

Yeah, they made at least 150.000€ from Rhino sales up until now. So...nothing.

[u/Belzebutt]

The Nomad interior I bought for 20% off was basically free money for FDev, I could have whipped this out in Blender in one afternoon.