Escaping the planet and travelling across galaxies has been a fantasy for many gamers. Starting with Elite in 1984, a string of ‘space sims’ appeared over the decades, hitting a golden age in the Nineties and resurging again in the 2010s. It’s a genre filled with hubris, with games getting delayed and cancelled more often than a politician’s court dates. And even by those standards, Star Citizen had become a bit of a joke.
Until now. The game is currently running a free week, meaning anyone can download the 80GB of files and jump into its persistent universe. I gave it a go over the weekend, and I’m very impressed. But I’m also far away from paying the $50 minimum price to join in permanently. Still in its alpha state, the game remains very buggy and barebones. Yet pop in with a few friends, and you’ll get a taste of its potential.
Star Citizen is effectively a ‘Han Solo’ experience. Get a ship and traverse the ether of space, doing missions and making money. So far, the game is pretty devoid of serious narrative or world-building elements. The missions are pretty routine, there is no engagement with the various NPCs, and overall it’s a sterile experience. But even with those shortcomings, it’s already pretty incredible.
This title has been in the works since 2011. Yet, unlike other games stuck in development hell, Star Citizen is very open about its progress and plans. It’s primarily funded by fans and crowdsourcing, having amassed over $400 million and employing hundreds of developers to get this staggering project off the launch pad. After a bumpy ride, things are starting to improve, especially as major engine features became finalised.
That brings us to the current free week. You can register at the official site and download Star Citizen via its launcher. Install it to an SSD – this game does not run well on a standard hard drive. Once you join in (and presuming the servers aren’t full), you get dropped into a large solar system with several planets and many places to visit.
The game world is impressive. Fly between planets using a forgiving and easy-to-learn flight system (though the simulation can be tweaked to be so detailed that some players only use proper flight sim peripherals.) You can land at large cities and space stations, with maps so detailed that it’s easy to get lost in them. At the start, this was very confusing – I spent a long time initially trying to figure out how to reach the hangars. I recommend reading the beginner tutorials in the launcher, as Star Citizen won’t hold your hand.
Almost everything is seamless – you can walk from your apartment to the hangars, then jump in and zip to space – or keep flying across the planets, scouting their detailed surfaces. There’s not much going on yet, but the potential for world-building across the cities and planets is staggering. Many space sims have aspired to emulate this level of scale, but Star Citizen nails it. It effortlessly transitions from space flying to first-person action, played in what could become a large living and breathing world.
You can play solo, but the co-op sells this experience. Friends can join you with their own ships, or you can fly together in one vessel (lie on the ground if there aren’t seats). Making parties and sharing missions is simple, and you can rent or buy larger ships with the in-game currency you make.
Now, the fine print. Star Citizen is still very, very buggy. I spent more time recovering from crashes than playing the game. It’s also still very unoptimised – even strong gaming machines struggle to get high framerates. Missions frequently bugged out, inventories broke, and maps failed to load properly. But it’s still playable enough to get excited about the game and its direction. The attention to detail is what fans of this genre have been dreaming about,
I’m definitely not paying $50 right now for Star Citizen, which is the cheapest entry package. But I recommend checking it out this week, while it’s free, and I’ll drop into future events to see how things improve. If the developers pull this off, Star Citizen will be the space sim that rules them all, rolling in elements of Freelancer, X, Elite and Privateer into a fantastic experience.
The free Invictus event runs until 31 May. Head to Roberts Space Industries to find out more.