Star Citizen strides confidently towards the future at its convention. The most important video for some fans, however, appeared earlier
For a change, developer Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) was not responsible for the biggest excitement at the annual Citizencon in 2022. It came before the crowdfunding MMO Star Citizen”s in-house exhibition even started and was completely unpredictable: A nine-minute video leak for Squadron 42 showed impressive space scenes from the single-player campaign, which CIG is now only talking about with the utmost restraint in the official setting.
Squadron 42 was also a topic at the actual event, but there wasn”t much to see; the previously published leak from Citizencon clearly stole the show. On the other hand, those who were mainly interested in news about the further development of the Star Citizen online universe got their money”s worth!
On the occasion of the big theme week “10 years of Star Citizen”, we asked an expert what he thought of the event – and he squeezed even more experts for their views. The result is a detailed opinion piece that classifies the announcements of new spaceships, revised locations and changed gameplay systems with a lot of expertise.
Casual ambience and Chris is back
October is the month that every Star Citizen fan looks forward to. It”s the time of the annual Citizencon and expectations are high. What is there to see? Is there any news about Squadron 42? And what about Chris Roberts, who has made himself extremely scarce lately? At least the last question was answered immediately.
CIG started the livestream for Citizencon 2022 punctually at 5 p.m. This alone was a medium sensation, as CIG is not exactly known for its penchant for punctuality. Surprisingly, viewers were greeted by a young Chris Roberts. Conjecture about magical rejuvenators was nipped in the bud when it became clear that this was the ten-year-old pitch video for Squadron 42 and Star Citizen.
Shortly after, the now Chris Roberts appeared (with a lot more wrinkles) and gave a brief overview of CIG”s development. Many fans had hoped to see and hear more from Roberts again. They were not to be disappointed at this Citizencon.
Throughout the Citizencon talks, Creative Content Lead Jared “Disco Lando” Huckaby led with a fresh, relaxed manner and unlike recent digital Citizencons, guests didn”t seem as nervous or stiff. The studio was a replica of the interior of a luxurious Constellation-class spaceship complete with a small bar.
The many decorations on the shelves and on a futuristic desk exuded a certain cosiness and the stream guests treated themselves to a cocktail or two. A good mood for the individual presentations that were announced. In total, there were seven panels, the content of which excited me and many other fans.
Optically a delight
If there”s one thing CIG can do, it”s deliver an incredibly good, graphical presentation of their universe. Be it the new planets and moons of Pyro or the run-down stations and hideouts of pirates: Immediately you want to board a spaceship and visit the places shown. The images of bizarre rock formations and vast plains of a moss-covered landscape alone looked like a beautiful postcard from a foreign world.
When you consider that you can fly from space down to a planet, all the way down to a single blade of grass, and all without loading times, this is still very impressive. Hopefully CIG will also fill the beautiful landscapes with life and tasks for players.
But not only the graphics were presented. The gameplay will also be adapted in the future and locations for missions will be extremely enlarged. Art director Ian Leyland showed that even well-known locations like Lorville or the popular bunkers will continue to change during the development of Star Citizen.
Underground facilities are being massively expanded and provided with many modules that are intended to present the player with ever new challenges. Thus, the environment of a facility changes from large halls to narrow corridors to small offices. In future, the player will have to decide whether to rush into a facility like Rambo or optimise his survival time and slowly work his way forward with caution and friends by his side. Without a silencer, you will probably have big problems, since the enemy AI has also been significantly improved, according to the developers.
So you are confronted with different behaviours of the AI, which makes the opponent proceed cautiously or aggressively. The AI allegedly even systematically searches all corners and looks into ventilation shafts in case the player has drawn attention to himself. Gone are the days when opponents behave like lemmings.
Lorville, the capital of the planet Hurston, will also be extremely enlarged and should offer players the opportunity to race between the skyscrapers. Currently there is a no-fly zone in Lorville. This is to be lifted in the future and will allow daring flight manoeuvres.
Red Alert: Gameplay changes in sight
The Star Citizen community is sensitive: Reddit and forums regularly explode when gameplay changes are made in the alpha. Sure: you can basically never please everyone. Nevertheless, according to CIG, it was time for changes, especially in terms of speed and dogfight.
Senior Gameplay Programmer Yogi Klatt and his team showed the new flight modes of the spaceships at Citizencon. These only allow slow speeds with active weapons and shields. If you want to take off, you have to switch to a quantum cruise mode, which allows short, extreme accelerations without selecting a specific point in space, as is necessary for a real quantum jump.
The disadvantage: The shields are lowered during the Quantum Cruise and it takes a little time to recharge the mode. During this time you are vulnerable and have to rely on your flying skills and the ship”s armour. This is where CIG needs to show if they can strike the right balance for freighter pilots, pirates and dogfighters.
What everyone will probably agree with is the implementation of the so-called “power play”. This refers to the complex control of the ship”s systems. The crew of a ship will be able to manipulate and optimise individual systems such as gravity generators, atmosphere regulators or switch boxes. As a result, one”s own crew will become immensely more important and the days of empty multicrew ships will slowly but surely become a thing of the past.
My conclusion: These are important and correct changes that many fans are waiting for.
The best for last?
A Citizencon wouldn”t be a Citizencon if new ships and vehicles weren”t introduced. This time CIG presented the Spirit class from the manufacturer Crusader. Three variants for different missions are available for sale. In addition, the new off-road vehicle from Greycat Industrial was presented. As always, the presented ships/vehicles are available for real money in the shop of CIG. However, a short time later one will have the possibility of ingame purchase.
Up to this point, Citizencon was entertaining, the topics were interesting and were always livened up by the short interviews of developers by Jared Huckaby. When Jared announced a big surprise, everyone in the audience assumed they would finally be able to find out something about Squadron 42, also in view of the video that had been leaked shortly before. And indeed, the viewers did learn quite a bit. But probably not what many had hoped for.
Chris Roberts and Richard Tyrer took their seats in the comfy chairs and began to talk at length about Squadron 42. Well … actually about the reasons why they didn”t want to show anything from Squadron 42. They also talked about the integration of Squadron 42 elements into Star Citizen. For over two hours Chris and Richard chatted about animations, new movement options, skills, AI improvements, the new mobi glass, the radar and the minimap.
It seemed like Chris Roberts wanted to make up for the time he wasn”t seen this year and get rid of all the saved up words in one evening. Jared looked quite desperate and tried several times to interrupt the long monologues … without success.
My conclusion: What was said was not uninteresting and the small video snippets, which were shown from time to time, showed a great preview of future things we can expect in Squadron 42 and Star Citizen. But a lot of things could have been put in shorter. There was also no information about the release of Squadron 42.
Editorial conclusion
The Citizencon was very interesting for me and I enjoyed watching the individual panels. Unfortunately, a hoped-for presentation of Squadron 42 and an assessment of its completion was missing. This is unlikely to appease critical voices.
The event was very entertaining and was only slightly marred by Chris Roberts” rambling explanations. We learned some new things, saw big changes and heard interesting words. Even if the thirst for knowledge of many players was not quenched, what was shown was again enough to ignite the enthusiasm of the fans and to look forward to the alpha version 4.0 next year.
Was Citizencon a success or not? Cloud Imperium Games” crowdfunding revenue speaks for itself: the company took in $1.7 million on the day of the show through spaceship purchases glorified as donations, followed by another million the next day. This is due in large part to the fancy Crusader Spirit, but at least as much to the satisfaction of the fans.
1.7 million players have already bought Star Citizen in the Alpha and the majority of them seem satisfied with where the next steps are going. For me, the trade fair was above all proof that Star Citizen is constantly evolving: even seemingly finished locations and gameplay systems are being tweaked again and again, and the already spectacular graphics are being enhanced even further. And if the leak of Squadron 42 is a sign of what CIG is secretly working on, then this is just the beginning. Provided you”re patient by nature and Chris Roberts doesn”t get on your nerves with his steamy chatter, the future of Star Citizen looks bright.
