Star Citizen Will Be Free to Try Out for a Week Starting Tomorrow

If you’re one of the many who are wondering what the big deal about Star Citizen is, you’ll have a chance to give the newest alpha 3.5 out starting tomorrow.

The new “Free Fly” event will start at 8:00 AM PDT, and will end on May 8 at 11:59 PM PDT. This gives you approximately seven days to get your hands on the game and try out its newest features.

Even if you took part in previous Free Fly events, there are a lot of new goodies to experience, like the new character creation, which doesn’t just let you deeply customize your avatar, but also includes females for the first time.

A revamped flight model makes flying a lot more fun, especially in a planet’s atmosphere. Speaking of planets, the new Coruscant-like, fully urbanized ArcCorp is also available to explore alongside its moons.

You’ll be able to try out several different ships and vehicles, including the Anvil Arrow, the Aegis Avenger Titan, the Drake Cutlass Black, the Drake Dragonfly, and the MISC Prospector.

You can read a description of each directly from the press release:

• Anvil Arrow – Featuring an ultra-aerodynamic frame, slight profile, and the most advanced maneuvering thruster tech available, the Arrow shines in Alpha 3.5’s new flight atmospheric flight model. It’s the most agile ship in its class and can hold its own in a knock-down-drag-out dogfight with quad missile racks and a full complement of countermeasures.
• Drake Cutlass Black – this ship packs real firepower with both piloted guns as well as a manned turret. It is flown by multiple crew members to haul and protect cargo. This is one of our most popular ships for both new and returning players.
• Aegis Avenger Titan – one of our cargo ships, the Titan is a light cargo hauler version of the Avenger specifically kitted out to deliver payloads across the ‘Verse.
• Drake Dragonfly – a two-seater hoverbike, the Dragonfly is equipped with a laser cannon and is one of the best ways to navigate surface-side in Star Citizen. The Dragonfly can fit easily in the cargo hold of many ships, giving players an on-the-ground option after landing.
• MISC Prospector – equipped with a mining laser, the Prospector is the “star” of Alpha 3.2 and Star Citizen’s starter mining ship. By putting it out in this free fly, we’re hoping that anyone who hasn’t had a chance yet can hit the ‘Verse and start mining!

Here’s a list of some of the new features included in alpha 3.5, to let you know what to expect.

• Playable Female Characters – at long last, Star Citizen adds playable female characters. Implementing playable females meant re-working nearly every interactable object in the game for use with an additional player model, from seating to carrying to shooting and piloting.
• ArcCorp – a sprawling urban planet covered by city space, ArcCorp features the new Area 18 Landing Zone, where players will find a neon-lit cityscape teeming with life.
• New Flight Model – an all-new in-game flight control system that applies to all ships in Star Citizen, incorporating a total overhaul to the entire flight experience and adds gravity to in-atmosphere planetary bodies. This New Flight Model is also applied to all AI controlled pilots in Star Citizen.
• CIG Character Customization Technology – An updated system for customizing your player character in the Persistent Universe, which includes new customization technology empowering players to select from up to three source heads and blend each of their various facial features into a fully customized character. This replaces Star Citizen’s previous 100-plus character permutations with a near-infinite pool of character customizations that are used for both player and NPC characters. All customizations are available for both male and the all-new female player character selections.
• FoIP + VoIP Improvements – New video streaming technology which allows players to participate in video comms calls no matter how far away they are in the Persistent Universe. Previously, as other players were “streamed out” from server clients, they would no longer be eligible as targets for a comms call. This update enables players to call anyone in the Star Citizen Persistent Universe through tech that evaluates your client and streams to the other party’s client as video data.
• New Environmental AI Bounty Hunting – AI bounty hunters will now attack players with bounties placed on their heads, and AI security forces will attack players with high crime stats.

If you want to hear more about Star Citizen, you can also read our interview with Cloud Imperium Games Los Angeles studio director Eric Kieron Davis discussing all things alpha 3.5. You can also check out a recent video shot by yours truly showing the new content, and another by Cloud Imperium Games showcasing more improvements and content coming down the line.

Do keep in mind, for the sake of full disclosure, that the author of this article has been a backer of the game since day one of the crowdfunding campaign.