New Star Citizen Gameplay Footage is Mindblowing; Planetary Exploration, Deserts, Giant Worms & More

Today Chris Roberts’ Cloud Imperium Games hosted its presentation at Citizencon, showing off more of Star Citizen, but before you go into the really interesting and spectacular stuff, some news about the upcoming evolution of the project were shared.

[Lamboomington]

Citcon on the whole was a letdown. No SQ42, no Star Marine. 2 hours of padding, and then finally this, which is great, but everyone expected SQ42 and something about imminent releases.
However, one has to admit that this particular section was very, very impressive. Did not expect to see the level of detail they went to with the V2 planets.

[The 10th Rider]

Yeah, I was disappointing not to see SQ42, I thought at least a trailer was in order.

That being said, the footage that they showed certainly maintained my optimism for the game. It feels like we finally got a look at how the game will look in its finished form. I didn't look like a beta or alpha, it looked closer to an incredibly solid, finished product. I think that's a pretty huge milestone. It was nice to have the roadmap for the future, too. here's hoping they show SQ42 before too long!

[annoyedgamer]

Of course its detailed..its scripted and crafted artificially. Lets see this get procedurally generated.

[The 10th Rider]

Yeah, I don't get how procedural generation would be an improvement? Their plan is to use procedural generation to help create the planets, then to personally touch them up so they're more detailed and polished. That's a much better way of doing things, just look at games like No Man's Sky, or Daggerfall.

[Lamboomington]

What ? no. Detail doesn't refer to the scripted elements. It's just the overall detail level and complexity. You have a character that can walk around with FPS mechanics. You can get into a rover, walk to the front seat, get in, drive it around, get in a ship, fly that in atmosphere, go into space...
The planets themselves have a great amount of graphical detail, which makes exploration much more rewarding. The sound design was fantastic too.

[ApocalypseShadow]

Looks pretty good. I think it's more focused on created planets than NMS was in trying to randomize exploration with procedural planets. Truthfully, I'd rather have a game that would concentrate on a future exploration of our solar system. Like if we colonized other planets or moons in our system, set up space stations orbiting those planets and a mystery like 2001 space odyssey. And maybe finding a wormhole like Interstellar the movie.

Kind of jealous it's not coming to console, but that's what makes an exclusive an exclusive. Looks good.

[Erik7357]

Yes. This game would not be able to run on consoles in this state. I wouldn't say it wont come to consoles, in fact i'm pretty sure it will at one point. It just will be heavily downgraded and maybe 2 years from now. Cryengine is great for cross development.

[The 10th Rider]

I doubt it will come this gen, maybe the single player portion, SQ42, when that finally comes out. I think after the full release with all the features, 2 to 3 years from now, it would still be another 2-3 years before the full game could hit consoles. Next gen will be here by then, so we may see it on PS5 and Xbox Two or whatever.

[ShadowKnight]

@The 10th Rider I thought Scorpio was the Xbox 2. A big difference with memory ram and teraflops between the Xbox one and Scorpio. I doubt this game will ever come to consoles.

[freshslicepizza]

"Kind of jealous it's not coming to console, but that's what makes an exclusive an exclusive. Looks good."

no, what makes an exclusive an exclusive is money thrown at a project to exclude others from playing or that the hardware simply cannot do it justice.

[Erik7357]

Yes, its not like a console "exclusive" it is a exclusive because it was self funded by gamers who wanted a next gen game with amazing graphics and thats why at this moment its pc only. People disagreeing with you are just butt hurt about it honestly.

[Gaming_Cousin]

Lol Moldybread... He didn't even state what makes an exclusive but then you disagree with it. How can you disagree with something that isn't even there?

[Red_Renegade]

it's not "thrown at a project to exclude others from playing." it's a game that can only be played on one platform. nobody throws money at dynasty warriors to keep them off other consoles, for example. what's with you?

[Liqu1d]

So Sony threw money at Uncharted 4 to stop it releasing on Xbox or PC or was it a case of other hardware not being able to it justice? Apocalypse is right, being exclusive is what makes an exclusive an exclusive.

[freshslicepizza]

@Liqu1d
"So Sony threw money at Uncharted 4 to stop it releasing on Xbox or PC or was it a case of other hardware not being able to it justice? Apocalypse is right, being exclusive is what makes an exclusive an exclusive."

if it was on the xbox one it would be lower resolution, probably 720p. however it is was developed on the pc it would not be limited to 900p and 30fps. and yes, sony invested in the project to sell ps4 hardware, that is why it is exclusive and wont be shared on other platforms. didn't realize my comment was so difficult to understand.

[cd1]

So what your saying is when consoles have exclusives they are the anti-christ but when PC's have an exclusive its OK because its just consoles cant do the game justice.

By that thinking PC gamers with a mid range PC shouldn't be allowed to play SC either because their rig cant do the game justice...right?

[The 10th Rider]

Actually, the processors in the PS4 and Xbox One . . . And yes, probably Pro and Scorpio . . . would likely struggle to run the game. The game is exclusive to PC only because they want their development to be as unhindered as possible. However, Chris Roberts has said that once the game is out on PC they may look into a console port of the single-player portion, Squadron 42. Likely by the time that rolls around there will be consoles out that can run it with relatively few hitches.

[Muzikguy]

Part about consoles isn't entirely true as inferior consoles get games all the time (and then don't do them justice)

[NohansenBoy]

Consoles are just simply incapable of running this game, though a PC with specs comparable to a console can run it.

[fllysurfer]

oh look its what No Man Sky should of been…!

[arkard]

Maybe if Hello games had a staff of over 12 people and are given over 100 million dollars, yeah No mans Sky could have been this.

[Concertoine]

Funny how this game will probably retail for the same price though huh

[The 10th Rider]

Star Citizen is $45 for the online, $45 for the single player, or $60 for both, actually. If you skipped out on the story, which No Man's Sky basically doesn't have, Star Citizen is actually cheaper.

*No Man's Sky does have a hint of a story, but Star Citizen has a fully voice acted story, with motion capture, cutscenes, everything. It includes the likes of Mark Hamill, John Rhys Davies, and Andy Serkis. The talent behind the single player story have more potential than your average AAA game.

[Errorist76]

Have...

[Avery]

Pretty stunning to be honest. That fly through demo to the planet and mock mission was exactly what I expected to see and they delivered.

What I like about what happened yesterday is that the road-map was laid out for everyone to see. I appreciated that update, now I know where I stand with the ship I bought.

At roughly "2-3 months" mentioned for each update iteration that is looking like 5 updates to 4.0 so another 10-18 months of solid development.

I'm guessing Squadron 42 will go with something like a May 2017 launch and then that team scale down to support post launch with the rest shifted over to main dev.

I bet internally they are wishing for a launch end of next year for Star Citizen but the way things have been, putting a time on it leads to bottle-necking. So I reckon at least 18 months easy.

I thought was a good event, looking forward to the implementation updates as they cycle through.

[Lordani66]

"That fly through demo to the planet and mock mission was exactly what I expected to see and they delivered. "

Sorry but that was pre-rendered. Get your hopes down.

[Avery]

Of course it was pre-rendered in parts, that is exactly what I was expecting. There has been something pre-rendered at every Con so far. What I expected to see was also how they explained scaling on Cry Engine 8x8km blocks to planetary scale, which was explained again. I've no issues with what was shown or how it went down. The fly through from space over the mountains to live on the planet was totally fine. Gives the idea of how it will be. The little guy on the mountain was cool.

Just a reminder at Gamescom a few weeks back they showed a fly through in real time - Space to Surface.

And just to get your hopes up a little, we'll see how good it runs with new netcode in the 3.0 update :)

[Lordani66]

Oh okay, if that's what you was expecting then okay.

[PrinceOfAnger]

no it's real time you are just another butthurt fanboy.

[Abriael]

I don't think "pre-rendered" means what you think it means.

It was live, played on the floor by one of the developers.

Some parts of it were certainly scripted, but not a single pixel was pre-renderered there.

[Andofaus]

What your seeing is Star Citizen coming to fruition and delivering on what was promised form the start. If you've been a backer for some time as I have you would see that. Star Citizen gets alot of hate because it is so impressive and many that predicted it a failure are being proved wrong or are jealous because they can't play it. I say to them get on board you want regret it.

[Lamboomington]

Wrong. All realtime.

[Lordani66]

It's not all realtime you dumbasses. The first part is like 90% pre-rendered, 10% real time, you can see it by not so many loading areas, trees, etc., and then it goes to a close up of that ship and BAM! massive loading of a terrain, which indicates it went from mostly pre-rendered to real time rendering. 3:02, massive hiccup, whole bunch of assets loading and the int goes to the game. This game is gonna be a flop, not really terrible, but nothing awesome either, just like mighty no 9.

[poppinslops]

So much for the 'it's a scam' crowd... if they aren't impressed by this (not to mention the Gamescom demo) then it's time for them to give up on videogames and sign up for Elon Musk's Mars Mission, which - aside from being an actual scam - is likely to be the only 'space-sim' capable of offering a more detailed experience than Star Citizen.

Celebrity cast aside, this game is starting to look like all of my favourite sci-fi's rolled into one... that intro reminded me of Prometheus, the 'rover' section was reminiscent of the first Mass Effect and then $#!t got all Star Warsey, with the speeder-bike and 'sand-people' - not to mention the mighty Moon Worm!

Here's hoping Microsoft can fan-dangle a Scorpio version - I don't care if it's released a year after the PC version, or how downgraded it is... that said, if Star Citizen ends up being every bit as good as it appears then I'd consider buying a PC just to play it - Hell, I bought a laptop just so I could play the original Witcher, though I wager a SC-ready machine would cost SIGNIFICANTLY more.

[Red_Renegade]

it's still not out yet, though...

[poppinslops]

Yeah, no $#!t - your point?

[poppinslops]

Are you suggesting that all unreleased games are scams, or just the ones that take time? Is Final Fantasy XV a scam? What about the Last Guardian?

[Lamboomington]

It doesn't need to be a scam. It could just be a terribly mismanaged project that bit off more than it can chew, and fail.

If CIG doesn't get 2.6 out soon, and 3.0 reasonably quickly (year end or next year) in a working state, they're screwed. All the coolest tech in the world won't save you if you can't put out a release with it.

[poppinslops]

Final Fantasy XV, Nioh and The Last Guardian have all been in development for a lot longer than Star Citizen, but they're all due out within the next 6 months... and a game like Star Citizen was always going to take years to develop - Mass Effect Andromeda has taken just as long and noone's questioning it's timeline, so it would be ignorant (or insanely optimistic) to expect Star Citizen to be released so soon.

If it takes CIG more than 7 years to produce a 'finished' retail copy, then it's time to ask the tough questions, but I haven't seen anything with regards to it's development timeline that suggests SC will take that long... that said, I hope they take their time - I mean, just look at what's become of Hello Games since they rushed No Man's Sky to the market.

[Lionsguard]

Except, FF15 and Last Guardian are funded by the publisher. Star Citizen is funded by the people. There are people who buy ships that cost hundreds of real dollars currently just to fund the game. I'm not saying Star Citizen is 100% a scam but your comparison is flawed and until the game is released it is very suspicious and will remain so until proven other-wise.

[poppinslops]

Anyone investing in a kickstarter should be well aware of the associated risks - which are miniscule in comparison to those taken by AAA publishers - though I think it's fair to say that anyone who's buying in-game ships for 'hundreds of dollars' has faith in the game's outcome... it doesn't matter where the money comes from - I mean, it's not as though Sony will accuse Team Ico of scamming them if the Last Guardian sucks.

[Lionsguard]

If 200 million people donated $1 to a company that ends up failing to produce the product but keeps promising it for years and years and keeps asking for money, it's still suspicious. Like I said, I'm not saying Star Citizen is a scam but until they produce the result, they're a grey area game. In every of your posts you seem defensive. You either work for them or you're a zealot. My advice? Lighten that grip they have your balls and wait for the finished game. I've been burned by over-promises and delays for decades. If the game is a flop, at best, you'll just be disappointed in the game at worst like many others, you'll lose hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

Let's just be clear here, I WANT STAR CITIZEN TO BE REAL AND SUCCEED. However, Star Citizen so far, only exists in a very limited form. They drop tidbits here and there to sate people like you and keep you fed on their Kool-aid. Me? I want the finished game. I've been through this many times before to ever fall for crap like this.

[poppinslops]

You overestimate me - I'm just a humble xboner who wants to play Star Citizen on the Scorpio... Tell me, aside from the delays - which are commonplace in AAA development - what is there to indicate that this game is not making progress? So far as I'm aware, there are various early-access modules and the devs are constantly giving updates and demonstrations - the most recent of which have been undeniably impressive.

You say you want this game to succeed, but I'm not so sure that's true... your last line makes it sound like you've been burned by some other dev's crowdfunded title(s) and now your taking your frustration out on CIG - and me.

[Red_Renegade]

unreleased games that take hundreds of millions of donated dollars and years to make and still aren't coming out might be scams. the last guardian wasn't crowdfunded. neither was xv. don't know why you brought them up.

[poppinslops]

So you're basing all of your doubt on maybes? Moreover, you seem to equate a game's funding model to what amounts to a criminal act - one that could be prosecuted, ala No Man's Sky... scams aren't exclusive to crowdfunding.

Look at RIME - wasn't crowdfunded and was basically a pre-rendered scam... Tequilaworks still haven't released any new footage or details with regards to the game, yet they don't get a fraction of the $#!t CIG are getting from the likes of you - despite having shown their progress throughout Star Citizen's development cycle.

[Red_Renegade]

there are no maybes on my end. you don't know what you're talking about, so you brought up games that aren't similar to star citizen in any way. not just how they play, but how they're being funded and made, either. give up.

[Kreisen]

Its nice to see a dev out there trying to built something truly special. But thinking about it, if it took them like 4 years now to built the core systems how long will it take them to built an actually interesting game? This tech is impressive but none of the missions/quests/objectives shown have been very impressive. And not to mention how every space station/planet has been completely empty outside of the specific things crafted just to show off during these demonstrations.

[TheOptimist]

You do know that the core is what takes time. As the game progresses, the development becomes faster.

[Hoffmann]

Well..that was a great looking but also very lifeless experience.

[Lordani66]

What is so mindblowing? This looks like ARMA III but in space, with a little better graphics. Animations suck ass. Everything is so empty and dull but big... Hmmm totally sounds like another game just recently released, that turned out to be a flop :D.

[PrinceOfAnger]

Troll.

[Kokyu]

Its pretty impressive game all together. It is almost enough to get me to build a PC for the first time in almost 3 decades. Im very interested in this game but Ill wait for actual release so I know what specs I need if it ever releases.

[sadsatan]

will probably need titan xp sli to run this beast at 4k

[Gaming4Life1981]

this game never fails to impress.

[Psychotica]

Looks real good, hopefully they aren't over-promising and under-delivering like happens in so many games these days.

[TheOptimist]

I doubt so. It is a PC exclusive which, even if they promise a tad, they will be able to deliver almost that, because there is no hardware restriction apart from the highest end consumer grade hardware.

[Count_Bakula]

As long as they put some care into third-person. Otherwise, nope.

[Mithan]

I've killed my expectations for this game ever being released in full form. At this point, I consider my $50 a "donating" to employee a few hundred people for a few years and let them live a dream.

[robschneider11]

Will Mass Effect Andromeda have space exploration similar to this?

[spartan_dx]

I... am a star citizen.

[Twinblade]

I have no idea when this game will be released, I bought the game and I haven't been able to do much, maybe I don't know what I'm doing, but I have been disappointed so far (based on my experience so far).

[FunkyBoy]

This game looks awesome but don't overhype shit guys haha don't turn into an angry mob because of your expectations

[Tumaras]

Beyond demo'd out with Star Citizen. Don't care and gave up on this ages ago. The lesson learned from SC is that even with a near unlimited budget it's still possible to bite off more than you can chew as a developer. The project creep in SC is something that would make a PM's head explode, and is what (at least so far) appears to have doomed it.

[no_more_heroes]

I don't actually see this game coming out for another 6 years, though I feel like I've been hearing about it since 2012.

[Andofaus]

When ever something new is shown the haters come up swinging claiming the game will never release as it's taking time to develop, what they fail to see is S,C is not any ordinary game with a 2-3 year development cycle. CIG is creating something amazingly on an scale that has never been attempted before and are succeeding at all challenges they are facing. If anyone thinks this type of project can be completed in the same time as a generic liner FPS your kidding your self. So keep bashing S,C and keep playing the same games every year with a 8 hour campaign and small scale multiplayer I'm in no rush I will continue to enjoy the development and every update they release, sometimes the journey is as good as the destination. As for the final game S,C fans can all see Chris's vision and are happy to wait on something that could revolutionize gaming.

[tgonzo]

I hope some years down the line somebody writes a postmortem about this game. It will be a very interesting read.

[Lordani66]

This game already has a budget of 125+ mln dollars. This gameplay shows us 5 mln, where's the rest 120+ millions?