At Germany’s Gamescom the space sim video game Star Citizen released a demo for their next big update. Lead game designer Christ Roberts revealed to audiences a live stream demo, which detailed several new features. Below is the nearly hour long video:
The demo begins with several different location being presented to gamers; there’s a space station with a massive ship stationed several floors below in the docking bay, and on a distant planet, we see an outpost that’s attacked by pirates. But aside from the missions themselves, one big highlight to the demo was the ability to now explore an entire universe. Whereas the previous two Alpha tests only allowed backers from their Kickstarter campaign to first explore the inside of their ship, and then, with the 2.0 release, to explore a small scale “persistent universe”, this new demo looks like it’s going to give players more exploration. The demo showed the upcoming 3.0 version, which looks like it’ll allow players to explore an entire, living universe.
As can be seen from the video, in the 3.0 version, players can reach out to other players via video message and offer various missions to one another. In the demo, one player plays as a first-person shooter, another as a flight simulator, and another wanders around a town. They all meet up to accomplish a job: they must deliver some cargo for a mercenary to a Space Station named Levski. The player consulting the mission through his smart watch is the freelancer, and the other player is the one piloting their ship. They head for a planet called Delmar where they land at Levski’s docking bay and meet the mercenary. From there, they play a cooperative quest spanning light years that will force them to delve into planets to explore. Star Citizen looks to be expanding the limits of massive multiplayer space exploration.
This new demo will be the 3.0 installment to the already ongoing alpha 2.0 and its new features look to make the game more dynamic. According to Polygon, the detailed missions and space exploration we see in the demo will
build out Star Citizen‘s story, as players can engage with one another and non-playable heroes who encourage them to explore the larger world. And that world is getting bigger; the star system will include far more locations to explore, each one with a dedicated set of characters who keep to their own schedules. That includes fellow players whom will populate the multiplayer online game.
Star Citizen’s Alpha 3.0 hopes to flesh out more of the already existing universe. According to Wccftech, the 3.0 version will include new mission types, play styles, flight modes, professions, AI, netcode, mission systems, item systems and ships will come online too. However, even more is expected to be released about the game during CitizenCom in October. The 2.5 version is set to go live soon, and 3.0 will be out later this year.