We recently saw the first footage of Star Citizen’s dogfighting in action. Chris Roberts was showing off the game at PAX East and, despite a few technical difficulties, it was stellar stuff. Since then Roberts Space Industries have released a half hour feature covering the preparation for the PAX demo including new footage of some of the game’s features they weren’t able to show off.
For instance, you get to see what happens when you eject your vulnerable pilot into the cold black of space.
If you’ve not seen the PAX footage before then you should make a point of skipping to the 10.20 mark. Likewise, at 21.50 you can see some dogfighting from the show floor. All exciting stuff.
However, the new footage gets good from the 32.30 mark. There you see one of the RSI designers get out of his ship and walk about a space platform, both in artificial gravity and zero-g. Then, at 35.30, there’s an edit of footage to an orchestral score.
Space walks and zero-g are important features because it shows you’ll be able to eject from your ship mid dogfight, avoiding an embarrassing death. It will also be possible to hotfoot it to the nearest station, Gravity-style. They’re also the features which will be at the core of any future plans for boarding vessels. Imagine being sat in the hold of a friend’s ship as they fight their way close to a capital ship before launching you out in the direction of their hull. From there you’d need to space walk along the hull to an access point where you can break in and hijack the ship.
I backed Star Citizen on day one of its campaign and since then I’ll admit I’d become very worried that my money might have been misspent, having seen very little from my investment. This footage has renewed my faith in the project and I can’t wait to see how it handles in my hands when RSI release the dogfighting module (hopefully next month).
Here’s another cut of the PAX footage. Jump to three minutes in to see the action kick off proper: