Star Citizen ’s Around The Verse Holiday Special offered an hour-long look at Squadron 42, including a 30-minute introduction to the team and an additional 30-minute installment of Ship Shape. Here’s a quick recap of everything we learned about gameplay and beyond.
SQUADRON 42
Starting with Squadron 42, Cloud Imperium Games has announced that gamers will receive monthly updates about the project’s progress until the undetermined release date. As we’ve known for years, this is a massive project with over 150 unique characters and 1,200 pages of scripted dialogue. The ultimate goal is to create a single-player narrative set in the Star Citizen universe.
The demo takes place about a third of the way into the campaign, and, like most missions in the game, it starts aboard a massive Idris frigate called the Stanton. If the footage is anything to go by, the Stanton is basically a floating level, with huge areas dedicated to crew quarters, engineering and, of course, a huge Star Trek-style bridge for mission control.
Before getting into the action, the player character spends lots of time chatting it up with subsumption-based AI characters. Building on the IGN First teaser from earlier this week, we once again see the “inner thought” dialogue system that offers two response options at conversation junctions. It all functions as it should, but the fact that it repeats each dialogue selection back to the player has the potential to be very annoying.
After lots more walking around, a character played by Game Of Thrones’ Liam Cunningham tells our hero about a wrecked Starfarer. Along with Mark Hamill’s Steve Colton, your crew is tasked to find the ship and fight off some dangerous outlaws. Before getting down to business, the player stops by the quartermaster to grab a combat knife, pistol and Phase Plasma Rifle. Then we take to the skies for some 20 frame-per-second space flight.
Once in the air, we get a look at the basic flight mechanics and some really primitive skyboxes. The flight is all very slow, but the reduced speed helps us get a good look at ships like the Gadius, Reclaimer and a yellow Starfarer. Colton interrupts the quiet scene with a laggy comm message, and before you know it, you’ll find yourself engaged in a dogfight against Slaver enemies in a massive debris field. The smoke effects and combat are in place for ships like the Cutlass, but the FPS drops to 15 or below show the sequence is clearly not ready for primetime.
At a mission junction point, the demo takes you on a track to find your lost companion, SAC Trejo. She’s crashed her Avenger, and intel reveals she’s been taken hostage. When you retrieve that info, you also get to see what EVA control is like. It’s as floaty as you could ever want in a space sim.
You will learn where Trejo is held, and must board their ship and use quantum travel to get to the base. There’s another lengthy flight sequence in between. Use a multi-tool to burn through a security door and make your way in. A couple stealth takedowns are necessary to infiltrate the base, but the mission eventually devolves into a gunfight reminiscent of Star Marine. When the battle ends, there’s a little more sneaking before you’ll makes your way to Trejo’s cell. Mission complete.
In short, the demo was basically meant to show us that the basic foundation of Squadron 42 is in place, from walking, to flying and shooting. CIG is aware of the many FPS issues and bugs, but the goal for this particular showcase was to prove the technological groundwork has been laid for additional polishing later on. No release info was revealed, but, considering the latest vertical slice was described as a pre-alpha work-in-progress, it will likely be quite some time before we get close to knowing those details.
SHIP SHAPE
To cap off the demo, there’s also a Squadron 42-centric episode of Ship Shape focused on the Idris, Avenger and Tumbril Nova.
Idris: The Idris is your home base in Squadron 42, and it’s basically served as the test bed for all ships in the Star Citizen universe. It’s got everything squeezed into one central frame, so you’ll need a big crew if you expect to pilot one in the PU. Players can take on several jobs to compensate for missing crew members, but added responsibilities eventually become too difficult to juggle. It’s big enough to fit three Galiduses in its cargo hold. While it’s in the final art phase, there’s still lots of work left to do.
Avenger: As seen in the demo, the new Avenger is now big enough to stand in. Everything about it has grown in size, but its basic design has stayed the same. Specialized variations exist for cargo, bounty hunting and EMP. It’s in the final art phase for Squadron 42.
Tumbril Nova: A newly revealed heavily armored tank. You control the turret from a distance. As expected, it’s great for ground combat. It’s wrapping up the concept art phase now and can be purchased with a pledge.
3.0 LIVE
Following Thursday’s public PTU of Star Citizen 3.0, a live build is expected for publish on Dec. 24. Be forewarned that updated PTU players are still finding the experience to be very buggy with low framerates. There likely won’t be a massive change overnight, so manage your expectations accordingly.
Star Citizen updates will continue with another episode of Around The Verse next week. Expect more on Squadron 42 at the end of January.
What did you think of Star Citizen’s ATV Holiday Special? Has Squadron 42 lived up to your expectations? Tell us in the comments section!
