 This is Witchface news for Friday the 22nd of September 2023. I'm CMDR Buur. In Elite Dangerous News this week, we take a look at what might be hidden inside the update 17 teaser trailer. After Fdev released their annual results we consider what they might mean for the future of Frontier Developments and Elite Dangerous. As always if you enjoy our videos please do hit the like button and if you haven't already be sure to subscribe and ding the bell so you don't miss any of our Elite Dangerous content and if you'd like to help directly support the Buur Pit you can also join our Patreon links to that and everything else are below. At last week's pitcon event in Nottingham in the UK Frontier chose to release a teaser trailer for the next update to Elite Dangerous update 17. Included on the end of that teaser was the expected release date for the update, that release date is October the 16th, just 24 days as I speak these words. Frontier hosted the latest episode of their frameshift live live stream last night and some significant portions of that live stream did concern themselves with the teaser trailer and what commanders thought they'd seen in it. Arthur told me when speaking to guest developer Max did say however that there was at least one detail that as far as he was aware no one had yet spotted. We've been over the teaser trailer with a fine tooth comb and having thrown the tooth comb away because it's coated in caustic goop we can now talk about what we think we're seeing in there. The teaser which is presented in a glitching found footage style shows around a minute and a half of what is very clearly some sort of Thargoid surface installation but it's not something that we have in the game right now or at the very least it's at a different stage of something that we have in the game right now. I'm going to make some assumptions here but there are too many indicators and familiar objects to ignore what we believe we're looking at is likely the next stage of one of the Matrix surface sites that appeared in the game recently. I say the next stage because the Matrix sites whose purpose and nature isn't even slightly understood make creaking and rumbling noises and have sand and material falling off of them the indication at least appears to be that they are in fact growing or pushing out of the ground somehow. I'm going to talk right out the gate about the opening shot because what it shows whilst very vague is we think significant. The video starts high above a planetary body so high that you can see the curvature of the surface quite plainly. As our viewpoint moves quickly forward a very large gaseous cloud can be seen coming over the horizon and whilst it's difficult to be sure at its centre we think we're seeing a large solid spire like structure. We're at some significant distance still so whatever we are seeing must be very large. The next scene shows further inside the cloud and we see two large organic spires protruding from the ground one with a beam of bright green light emitting from its centre. As the scene continues a bright point of light launches from what looks to be a patrolling revenant more on that in a moment and it rises quickly into the sky. Rather than continue rising however the object reaches altitude and then seems to travel horizontally almost like a patrolling aircraft or perhaps aerial drone. On the extreme right of the scene is a further organic structure that we think reappears throughout the video off to one side and whilst it's difficult to be sure it looks to be extremely large. We think this may be the base of the central spire that we're seeing over the horizon at the start of the video. As the video continues we're shown various Thargoid matrix like structures and protrusions at ground level until we see what looks to be one of the objects from the current version of the sites that when scanned is identified as itself a matrix. The I'm going to call them petals of the matrix are rather ominously slowly opening. Also the base of the matrix looks to be much wider and deeper than what we've seen so far. It looks like it may have pushed further out of the ground and more of it is now showing above the surface with root light structures underneath that you can clearly see through in the opening scenes of the video. Next we see a couple of scenes of Thargoid revenant drones moving around but it becomes rapidly apparent that some of the revenants we're looking at are not the same as the ones we've become used to. They are larger and have at least two search lights on the front whereas the current crop of revenants sport just one such light. If I had to guess I'd say these drones are the Thargoid equivalent of the Goliath drones that are often found in human military installations. I also think it was likely one of these Thargoid Goliath drones that launched the bright light aerial drone that I spoke of at the start. Again all the while there is the presence of the very large Thargoid structure off to the side of the screen. We currently have no idea what purpose all these structures serve is it a Thargoid citadel maybe or perhaps an actual hive. Your guess is as good as mine. We can clearly see there is another form of the revenant drone on the way. My personal feeling is that perhaps we're seeing it launch an eye in the sky style drone of its own or a loitering weapon system perhaps. I do think we're looking at a very very large central structure surrounded by spires and that the barnacle matrix structures themselves are opening up. The whole scene is very Geiger-esque and frankly the stuff of nightmares. As I mentioned at the top of this piece update 17 arrives on the 16th of October. Frontier developments released their annual report last week which always makes for interesting reading in one way or another. I will preface this by saying that we are not by any stretch of the imagination proficient financial analysts but we do have some very basic understanding of these types of reports. This can obviously all be quite dry material to chew through so we're going to focus on two important key performance indicators both of which have gone down this year. The first is a thing called a beta which is the worst acronym in the universe but it basically stands for earnings before interest taxes depreciation and amortization. Pretty thrilling stuff right? The second is the company's cash flow. This is perhaps a bit more obvious in that it's a measurement of the amount of cash that comes into and out of the business in a given period. In any company a decrease in the worst acronym in the universe may be an indication of low profitability. It generally means the company has had rising costs but they have been unable to pass those costs along to the customer by raising their prices as one example and so this number goes down. The cash flow represents the amount of cash the company is generating from its activities before paying off any debts and stuff like interest. Frontier did note in the report that the decrease in their cash flow of around 10 million pounds was due to the acquisition of complex games the developers of warhammer 40k chaos gate and also a purchase of shares to slot into their employee benefit trust this year and were it not for these two contributing factors the cash flow would have in fact gone up. Overall their pot of cash actually looks pretty healthy still. The two indicators we've isolated here aren't by any means the whole report but they are a simple way of understanding what's generally going on with any business. If they are rising that's a good sign if they are falling it's not so good and Frontier probably have got a bit of a bumpy road ahead to get through as a result. Looking at this situation with a calm head I don't think the sky is falling by any means but it may mean we'll see a tightening of the corporate belt buckles and possibly a reduction in more casual spending across their stable of existing titles including a leak. I'm going to guess that licenses like warhammer age of sigma and formula one are expensive for Frontier to get and as a result the board are going to want to see a significant return on those two investments which is why we've seen them become such a big focus for fdev in recent months. It is interesting to note that games released before the start of this financial year delivered 72 percent of the total revenue in that period with Jurassic World Evolution 2 being the biggest hitter. Fdev have also stated that Elite Dangerous is still making money as part of that portfolio of games. Frontier note that their post launch nurturing strategy delivered solid numbers this year i.e looking after the games they already have released has paid off well for fdev now and in the past and it continues to be a staple of their overall corporate strategy. As a company they have also declared a refocusing of their strategy and this made for some very interesting reading indeed. Johnny Watts the new CEO who took over from David Braben just over one year ago now notes that in January 2024 the company will be celebrating 30 years since Frontier was founded in 1994 and that benchmark has provided quote the perfect context in which to look back at our games and reevaluate what makes a Frontier game when it comes to our project selection decisions end quote. In analyzing their successes fdev have now defined four project selection pillars these being strategic experience gameplay and longevity. In the report they go on to state that their biggest past successes to date all align under those four project selection pillars. They then go on to list their favored game genres that they see as staples of fdev's identity. Those listed genres are CMS games or creative management sims so titles like Jurassic and Coaster etc and they have two more CMS games currently in development one for financial year 25 and one for financial year 26. This genre far and away is what Frontier considers to be its strongest suit. Sports management with the F1 manager series being the current focus real-time strategy this way lies Age of Sigma turn-based strategy here be Warhammer 40k chaos gate and finally open world space simulation with the genre defining elite series of games. Just to underline that again fdev have this week said that they have five genres that they see underpinning the company and those genres are creative management sims sport management sims real-time strategy games turn-based strategy games and open world space simulations. Odyssey now two and a half years ago was a significant bump in the road absolutely. Odyssey did however arrive off the back of seven years of significant success with elite dangerous performing extremely well for fdev and that can't be ignored or trivialized. My personal assessment is that they very much need f1 to start earning its keep and they clearly have a lot riding on Warhammer Age of Sigma. I was personally excited to see fdev were making a Warhammer RTS game I was less excited when I learned that it isn't in the 40k universe and had a smaller more console centric scale and approach to real-time strategy but I'm of the total annihilation and supreme commander generation which were very different games to what Sigma appears to be reaching for. Frontier is undoubtedly facing some challenging times there's no two ways about it and I do think the company is likely about to go through somewhat of a fire storm you can't escape the fact however that fdev have listed both elite dangerous and the space simulator genre as part of their strategy going forward. I think the next year could be a galvanizing process for them they're already looking at what they do best and are refocusing the company toward that and having been through the fire they'll likely emerge stronger and wiser. Were you reassured to hear Frontier refer to space simulators as one of their pillar genres? Have you seen the update 17 trailer and what details can you see that we might have missed? Let us know in the comments below that's it for now thanks very much for watching we'll be back later this week with more videos until then 07 commanders follow the greens on the way out and do keep clear of the toast rack we very much look forward to seeing you next time