Even the game’s harshest critics would agree that Star Citizen is one of the most ambitious gaming projects ever undertaken. Too much ambition can sometimes lead to unrealistic expectations and endless perfectionism. But does Star Citizen fall into that trap? Or is the talent and experience of Chris Roberts and hundreds of other developers at Cloud Imperium games enough to overcome those pitfalls?

This review is for the alpha state of the game as of 2021. The “game” (alpha build) is totally playable, but not without bugs or performance issues. Is it a good time to get into it? We shall look at all the major components that make up Star Citizen and then decide.

Star Citizen’s new ship pack costs an absurd amount of money. There’s a lot of awesome things you can buy in the real world for $27,000, so this is definitely a package for those who would. There was even the option to buy every ship in Star Citizen for $27,000 at one point. Heck, one Star Citizen player has spent over $30,000 on the game. “Madness”, I thought and stopped looking into the game entirely.

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Ship to Ship Combat

Ship combat is fun and has been fun since at least 2015. There is a mode called Arena Commander where you can go against other players or AI in small pre-generated maps. Because these maps are only meant for small skirmishes, performance is very very good. I get well over 100 fps.

Small fighters like the Galdius and Arrow are fast and nimble. Medium fighters can have stealth (Sabre), be good at brawling (Hornet) or be glass cannons (Hurricane). You even have heavy fighters like the Vanguard series which is reminiscent of the P-38 Lightning from WW2. Speaking of WW2, combat is essentially WW2 dogfighting with some cold war missiles/ stealth tech blended in.

If you want to get a feeling of what’s it like, think “space opera”. Personally, I think the combat is closer to Battlestar Galactica than Star Trek or Star Wars but with the benefit of hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding and decades of tech advancement. Capital ship combat is designed like WW2 style gun battles between battleships or cruisers. Big guns firing hundreds of shots at each other, while smaller fighters buzz around, torpedos fly and miss and anti-fighter Gattling guns light up the darkness. It doesn’t get better than this.

But bigger is not always better. Capital ships have a big target on their backs and as WW2 taught us, big ships are vulnerable to bombers and torpedos and need adequate fighter escorts. Losing a capital ships is going to be a costly affair. You can insure it, but it will still need to be rebuilt by a factory and you might still have to replace components or upgrades and the experienced crew you lost. Which is why you have to be deliberate with how you utilize your bigger toys and might still want to use your smaller ships most of the time.

Star Citizen Careers: Trading/ Mining/ Repair/ Salvage/ Bounty Hunting/ Medical/ Refueling

These are just some of the careers planned in the game and some of them are already in. You can already trade, bounty hunt and mine both in space and on planets. However, they are still early in the development and not without bugs or balance issues. But there’s the thing – despite the bugs, I still find myself wanting to take my ship out for a spin. The underlying game is just that much fun that you feel compelled to keep soldiering on despite the bugs. But more on bugs later.

Each of Star Citizen’s careers have enough content to be spun off into a game of it’s own. For example, mining involves hand mining with a laser, planet mining with vehicles that are already in the game (ROC and ROC DS), asteroid mining with ships like the Prospector and MOLE or waiting for the massive Orion that just gobbles up rock like a hungry hungry hippo. Its an involved process that first requires you find the good ore and then mine it with a laser that can blow up if you are too careless. That is just the first step though. You then have to refine it and then find a place to sell it. All the while, you can be harassed by pirates and might have to hire other players as escorts to protect you.

Other careers are equally detailed and there are so many I haven’t even mentioned yet. For example, there is a ship that is designed to be a news van! You can capture battles or other incidents and rush to the nearest planet to report the news. There are ships that have hidden compartments for smuggling. There are luxury taxis (Constellation Phoenix) and yachts (Origin 600i, Origin 890J) that you can use for transporting VVIP. There are even racing ships like the M50, 350R and MISC Razer that are purpose built for Formula 1 style racing in the future.

First Person Gameplay

CIG’s first person gameplay is pretty on point. It wasn’t really a big focus initially and they had even subcontracted this work out to another company before. But that was a long long time ago and ever since they have now completely taken over and first person gameplay is on another level. Physical inventories, detailed character animations, realistic physics, character needs like food, drink, temperature and so on. It’s pretty exciting.

You also have access to a number of tools which all offer something unique or exciting. For example, there are dozens of styles of armour and each set is visually unique and offers some trade-off. Heavy armour, for example, offers more protection, but you can’t sit in a pilot seat wearing it. Then you even have things like the upcoming Titan mech suit. If and when you do get injured, there is an entire medical gameplay element. There are medical ships like the Apollo and Cutlass Red to take you to the hospital. And yes, there are actual hospitals on planets and even hospitals in space (like the Hope-class Endeavour spaceship).

As your character take damage over the months or years, he or she will inevitable die and you essentially start playing as their heir, getting access to all their ships and property! The level of detail is simply staggering and its not just that the ideas are solid, the implementation is well. I find running around and shooting quite satisfying already.

Ground vehicles

Ground vehicles were also not the initial focus, but now we have enough of them that they are in a category of their own. We already have over a dozen and I fully expect dozens more to come. You have Tonks (Tanks), buggy’s wheeled bikes and hover bikes, fancy explorers and rugged explorers.

The best part is not the vehicles though. I think they have a long way to go physics-wise. The best part is the terrain you can drive on. There are already dozens of moons and a few planets that range from tundra to rugged mountains to deserts to toxic alien biomes. You can race, engage in combat, or plan a long, relaxing sight seeing ground trip.

CIG clearly has big plans for ground vehicles and combat. The fact that we tanks, SAMs (Surface to Air Missile) and even big planes capable of carpet bombing (Hercules A2) implies that they expect big battles on the ground. We already have small bases scattered throughout but for all these toys to be useful, you will need more incentive to drive that gameplay. Bigger bases, mineral rich minable areas and other strategic assets on the ground will make sure players keep coming back. We already have detailed caves scattered throughout the current planets and moons which tempt miners to explore them.

Star Citizen sign-up Bonus!

Get 5,000 UEC extra (in-game cash) using this sign-up link or code: STAR-BX2G-7NDL

World design (Procedural Generation Tech)

I was amazed by the beautiful worlds of Skyrim, Witcher 3, AC Unity, The Division and Red Dead Redemption 2. Some people just like to rush through the content, but I like to enjoy the scenery and appreciate all the little details. That is what I believe is Star Citizen’s biggest strength. they have managed to create such a beautiful world already and we are still just talking about the first of a 100 star systems!

We have gas giant planets, rocky worlds, tundra worlds, lush green planets, ocean worlds, toxic polluted hellscapes and even an ecumenopolis (planet wide city). These are not just 100-200km long maps, these are entire planets and moons that are thousands of miles in circumference. The only way to build on such scale is by using procedural generation technologies. The best thing about these algorithms is that you can keep tweaking them and see your planets become better and better. We already have canyons

Does Star Citizen Use Real Money To Purchase Ships