Twelve years after its initial announcement, the Star Citizen effort shows no signs of slowing down (not that it was ever going at light speed to begin with). Developer Cloud Imperium Games has announced an “alpha” version of version 4.0 of Star Citizen nb. For context, version 3.0 of Star Citizen was released in 2017, so this theoretically represents a pretty big jump for the game.

The update introduces a new Pyro star system consisting of six planets, six moons, and countless outposts and bases. The highlight of the update, however, will be that the game will now use a server mesh. This brings the number of players on each server up to the size of an MMO, whereas before it was on the scale of an MO. The amount of change in the update also meant that all servers would be reset and wiped, and everyone would start fresh with an additional 20,000 aUEC of in-game currency.

The new pyro system is pretty wild. There is no governance by central authorities, so unless you want to be at the mercy of pirate gangs and PvP-minded players exploring the new system, you'll want to be well equipped (and remember that the larger servers make it more likely that you'll actually encounter people).

On Reddit, the community has been sharing their thoughts after the initial 4.0 phase. Some players are pleased with the game's progress in terms of consistent performance, although Star Citizen's standards for good performance appear to be a bit skewed. One commented:

“After probably 20+ hours of play in 4.0, I had a few station drops, one snub despawn, 3-5 out of 20 missions failed, a couple of mobiglass map breaks, a couple of localized server errors, and most commonly, the QT was It was a bit finicky. For the most part, a quick trip back to the main menu tended to fix everything. Overall, much better than what I experienced with 3.24.

So is that okay? Because for a game that has been in development for over a decade, has been playable in Early Access since 2017, and was produced with a $750 million crowdfunding budget, it doesn't look so good. There seems to be a lot of goodwill in the community for the game, especially with the 4.0 update, but every time I see Star Citizen gameplay, I can't figure out where that eye-popping sum of money is going.

Take a look at this video of a player who was moved to tears when he first set foot on Bloom, one of the new planets. Am I being haughty, or does it look like nothing more than a procedurally generated landscape of rolling hills?

It's great to see people enjoying Star Citizen, and this update seems like a step toward the elusive 1.0, according to CEO Chris Roberts. This update seems like a step toward the elusive 1.0, according to CEO Chris Roberts.