As a backer of Star Citizen (although I have only played it for about an hour) I hope that their plan for the various modules to one day merge into a huge interconnected world full of spaceships, planets, stations and destruction come true. That’s the plan at the very least, but as with any great project there is doubt. Lately we have been seeing a lot of promise though with a lot of videos popping up with various new features.
The multi-crew demo was shown off recently and is worth a watch, but more importantly maybe depending on your view is the latest video. The Social Module where you can “celebrate” with friends in a space bar. Yes this is important, everyone should be able to spend their time in a virtual world doing exactly what they should be doing in real life, spending time in the pub.
In all serious it is a big part so many if not all space MMOs have promised something like this at some point (I’m looking at you EVE) and never delivered. Star Citizen backers will be able to roam the social hub later this month, but you can watch a video of someone else wandering around right now. The video above features narration by the Chris Roberts, and the one below shows the same area in greater detail at 60fps.
Cloud Imperium has shown part of this zone before, but it’s been greatly expanded. You can go inside shops and a pub complete with beer on tap. Everyone’s dressed in the military gear built for Star Citizen’s FPS module, but the devs plan to add off-duty clothing soon, and bar fights? Please add bar fights…
Star Citizen has drawn flak for its funding model, which sells virtual ships for hundreds of dollars, and for the perceived slow pace of development. Chris Roberts recently defended the process in a blog post, mentioning that 255 people are now busy building Star Citizen and the single-player campaign, Squadron 42. It’s a project of vast scope and ambition, and hopefully it won’t disappoint legions of backers