Developer: Cloud Imperium Games
Publisher: Cloud Imperium Games
Platform: PC
Star Citizen: Arena Commander – Preview
Star Citizen in a space-simulation MMO being developed by Cloud Imperium Games led by Chris Roberts. Central in the game’s development is the community, they’re being very open about their progress and share content with the game’s backers as its being made. They’re doing it in the form of modules. At first, a hanger module was released to give players a sense of the game’s atmosphere and a chance to check out their ships. Recently the dogfighting module (called Arena Commander) was released offering the first glimpse at some real gameplay.
When Chris Roberts announced he’d be making a new game, a lot of people seemed interested. He’s the man behind successful titles such as the Wing Commander series and Freelancer as well as several movies. He also said he would try to crowd fund the game to skip having to work with a publisher. Through the Kickstarter website, Star Citizen was born with a hefty stretch goal to meet. Not only did the project manage to crush that goal, it set a record and even today it’s the most successful crowd funding project out there. They’ve managed to secure close to 45 million dollars at the time of this preview. The way it works is when you want to support the game, you buy a pledge package which contains at least 1 ship. Which one you get, depends on the package and the price you pay of course. After that you get access to the game’s early modules as well as the full game when it is released. You’ll also get access to the offline game “Squadron 42”. The developers promised that that game will be a fully featured game on its own with decisions you make in there being carried on to the Star Citizen universe.
Now let’s talk about the actual module. The dogfighting module is very early pre-alpha, meaning that it’s in no way how the actual game will look like. However it’s already looking very nice. The early backers can play in a competitive multiplayer mode, other backers get some offline modes to play with. You can do a free flight or fight against waves of enemies on two maps right now. The ship you will be able to fly will depend on what pledge package you choose. Because of balancing, there’s 3 flyable ships. Talking about flying, which will probably be one the most important aspects of the game, controller support is still limited at the moment meaning you’ll have to use keyboard and mouse for now. To me, it actually felt quite good. The ships are responsive and you can do all kinds of maneuvers. Shooting lasers is always great and here they feel good as well. Firing too much will overheat the weapons making you think about when to fire and where to aim. There’s a surprisingly large amount of systems already implemented. All ships have damage models, fully featured and working HUD’s, decent AI, sound-effects, shield-systems, missiles and more. While graphic options are limited and FPS isn’t very stable, as a pre-alpha it runs quite stable on my system. Be sure to check out the before and after battle pictures for a look at the damage states which are the ones above and below this paragraph. I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out which one was after.
Conclusion
It’s too soon to know if Star Citizen is heading in the right direction but I like what I’m seeing so far. It’s great to see how Cloud Imperium Games is involving the community in the development and tons of videos on YouTube show how much they care. I think their system involving modules is pretty great too. Rather than trying to push some sort of complete game, they do it module by module. If you get a chance to try out this game, do it. If you want to be involved in Star Citizen or want to pledge while you still can, check out their website. There’s also a separate pass you can buy, just to enter the Arena Commander module.
Star Citizen: Arena Commander - Preview,
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