A new trailer for the multi-million dollar crowdfunded space sim, Star Citizen, has been unveiled by developer Cloud Imperium Games, showing off many of the game's gorgeous settings in a video entitled 'Imagine'. The trailer shows a collection of previously seen footage of the game, combined to create a three minute long retrospective.
As you may well know, the game is still in development, and is not expected to resemble its finished state until around the end of 2016. Players are asked to contribute by providing feedback on the official website and by adding to the game's funding as they purchase in-game content and merchandise.
In addition to the new trailer, Chris Roberts penned a blog post to announce the release of one of the game's six key modules, Arena Commander, which will hit version 1.0 at the weekend. This latest version of the space game's dogfighting module brings fans yet another step closer towards seeing Star Citizen finally becoming a full game, as it's currently the only way to fly around in the game's beautiful spaceships. Touted as the "most significant update to Arena Commander yet", the release adds more ships and upgrades, enhancements to ship systems and the long-awaited lobby system to the game.
The dogfight simulator module allows players to battle computer-controller ships and other players to let them get used to their ships in Free Flight mode. Version 1.0 triples the number of ships ready to fly in Arena Commander, with every variant of the Aurora, Mustang, 4300 and Hornet and the base models of the Cutlass and the Avenger now flyable.
The lobby, alongside an in-game friends system, should be a nice addition to help players connect. A ship signature system, a thruster power system and a lateral g-force system are also part of the update whilst the visuals, animations and audio effects are said to have been improved by the team as well.
However, even with all the updates, version 1.0 is still not the feature-final version of Arena Commander. Further gameplay modules and updates are expected to be released throughout 2015 and 2016. "I would like to stress that today’s release of Arena Commander 1.0 is a beginning, not an ending… future changes won’t be limited to fixing technical glitches and balance issues," Roberts assured in his blog post.
Players who have already purchased ship packages without the 'Arena Commander' pass can add the pass for $5. As for those who want to pick up a ship package it will cost a minimum of $20.
