Star Citizen has revealed that the development team is kicking off another free trial weekened for this week. This will give all new and returning players a chance to try out every single ship currently flyable in the game. There’s dozens of ships to test fly, and a new set will be available each day.
Last month, the team over at Star Citizen HQ already kicked off one of these test periods. That time it was to circulate awareness about the launch of alpha 3.7 and its new content, all as part of “Into The Depths”. This time though, the stakes are much higher. That’s because the annual convention around this ambitious space game is due to kick off this weekend.
And not only is that convention due tomorrow, the game is also getting a huge update. In this new alpha patch, Star Citizen will be pushing a ton of new content around a Welcome Hub that’s finally being built into the game. I say finally because this is the full tutorial for this exceedingly complex space sim. This is where all of the systems are explained through a web of video and text tutorials, and seeing it in the game means that brand new players won’t be completely lost. In addition to that, the system will matchmake newcomers with volunteer “Guides” that will help them get acquainted with the vast and complicated systems of spaceships and all the other bits.
If you’re not at CitizenCon you can catch the announcements from the live stream, starting on November 23 at 8:00 a.m. ET. Gamers and fans are excited to see what the developers have planned, and theories about the announcements at the event are running wild. CIG has been pretty good overall about rolling out new content, although it has taken quite a while.
With the last few months of progress, many new ships have been added, but there’s so much more than cool new spaceships in Star Citizen. The economy that makes the whole game tick is steadily getting attention, with new items and systems being pushed every patch. This new free weekend will even give a thematic reason to pay attention to the economy. As the justification being given is that every single ship manufacturer will be making their inventory available for all players, one at a time.
All in all, it looks like CIG is doing a ton of work and it’s really paying off. Over the last few weeks, that work has continued. And now, we’re seeing the development team push more and more content in terms of missions and story events into the game worlds as well. You can see some of that work in a recent “Inside Star Citizen” segment that reveals the new mission work and other environmental details.
If you want more SC news, why not check out the Around The Verse video series a look? Those take a deeper dive at a variety of development progress items and a bunch of future features and plans.
Star Citizen has exploded all over the internet since it was first announced years ago. As of writing Cloud Imperium Games has currently raised $241,447,753 from 2,422,926 backers overall. We can expect that number to jump this weekend though.