I Tried Star Citizen's Free Event to See if it Was For Me

Recently, developer Cloud Imperium Games’ popular space simulator and MMO Star Citizen had one of its open days, and, as a long-time fan of flying in space, I joined a couple of friends to see what the game was like. After playing through it, I have to say that I can see the appeal, but there are a couple of issues that mean I won’t be paying for the title just yet. 

For anyone who doesn’t know what Star Citizen is or how it plays, it’s essentially a vast universe that you can explore, take quests in, and fight against opponents. You have a wealth of different jobs you can do, from salvaging ships, transporting cargo, or engaging in some sweet piracy. Not only that, there’s a host of different ships, guns, and armour that you can buy, as well as a pretty detailed character customiser to make sure your errant space captain can look like you… or an unholy abomination. Sadly, there’s no option to make an alien yet, but it may appear at some point. 

The main focus of Star Citizen, and where you’ll be spending most of your time, is your ship. Now, this is essentially a simulator, so the actual flying will take place from a first-person perspective. There is the option to use a third-person view, but that removes every other element from the HUD, so it’s really just for looking at your ship and taking screenshots. The actual controls work pretty well, although there’s a pretty steep learning curve (I may have repeatedly crashed into the odd space station or planet). The dogfighting is also pretty fun, with clear indications of when you’ll hit and miss your shots. However, the missile mechanic is a bit tetchy and hard to figure out at times, so I never really used them. 

The universe you can explore is also massive, with numerous different planets and biomes, as well as space stations that you can explore to your heart's content. There’s not always a lot to actually do on each one, but it’s nice to have the option to just land in the forest of a random celestial body and wander around. The space stations also have a bit of variety, although you have to go through a wormhole to reach the station with the most interesting design.

However, all that variety does come with some pretty noticeable downsides, particularly in performance and stability. Now, I have a pretty powerful rig, but at times the game stuttered or failed to load certain elements or was just painfully slow to respond in some places. That said, I want to note that with the increased number of people on the servers due to the free weekend, this might not be a constant issue. 

Outside of exploring with your ship, there’s also on-foot combat, which is certainly present… See, while you can run around shooting, the enemy AI is barely cognizant, and they’ll usually yell the same few lines over and over again, while standing still and getting nailed by headshots. It’s not the worst I’ve come across, and it’s certainly nice to change up the pace a bit, but it’s really the area that needs the most work in my experience. Sadly, I didn’t get to fight any monsters, so that might be a more enjoyable time overall. 

Honestly, the number of things you can do in the game really lends itself to crafting your own adventure, and I had a lot of fun doing the odd transport and bounty hunting quest. The real issue I had was the bugs that are prevalent in Star Citizen. Through my time with the game, I experienced things like falling through the world, HUD elements sticking around, my ship randomly losing control, and the ability to see travel points or chart a route. It got really annoying after a while and turned me off the game a fair bit. However, I do want to make it clear that the scope of Star Citizen does add a certain amount of leeway. 

In truth, the biggest issue that I had was with the first-person-only option while in the cockpit. I suffer from dyspraxia, so my spatial awareness isn’t exactly perfect, and I like the option to see this ship from the outside so that I have a better idea of where everything is. If they build on the third-person camera option, then I will certainly consider going back to the game. 

So, is Star Citizen for you? Well, from what I gathered from friends who play it a lot, once you get past a lot of the issues, there’s a really great title here. Personally, I had a lot of fun, but some of the problems certainly held me back. I will happily download it again when Cloud Imperium Games has another free week, which is a pretty common event and a great way to see if the price of admission is worth it.