The space MMO Star Citizen polarizes like hardly any other game. A new trailer of the StarEngine with updated graphics and physics effects excites a large part of the community. However, there are also critical voices.
Star Citizen, the ambitious space MMO by Chris Roberts, has been in development for many years. It has already consumed several hundred million dollars in development costs. Fans and critics are often controversially opposed to each other with their opinions about the game.
A new trailer that showcases the revamped game engine causes differing opinions once again. The tech demo shown impresses most fans. Critics have issues with the way this marketing measure is conducted and want to finally see more real gameplay.
StarEngine video impresses with revamped graphics and physics
What is this video about Star Citizen? Developer CIG has released an updated trailer for its in-game StarEngine. In the over 20-minute-long video, we experience a seamless journey across multiple planets, space stations, and the transition between two solar systems. The recording is done without cuts and loading screens.
Originally, the video was presented at this year’s CitizenCon at the end of October. Even then, most fans were thrilled about the material. Since CIG continuously tweaks its game engine, the updated trailer is full of improvements.
What improvements have the community noticed? Not all differences compared to the old trailer version are immediately noticeable. Most fans have particularly noticed better lighting, reflections, and particle effects. Water on planets now reacts, for example, more realistically to ships flying above.
Fire effects also appear much more lifelike now. In this context, errors from the old trailer have been corrected. There are now no more NPCs walking emotionlessly through the flames on a burning spaceship.
Generally, NPCs, more spaceships, and other details have been added for a livelier game world. The tech demo runs overall more smoothly and has a seemingly higher frame rate.
Fans are thrilled, critics feel confirmed
What does the community say about the revamped trailer? Most voices are predominantly positive. Fans praise the development of the engine. They are already looking forward to experiencing all the showcased effects and the new solar system Pyro live in the game in the near future.
- “Definitely one of the coolest and most impressive game engine demos of all time. Doing all this in a single shot that spans an entire solar system is quite impressive.” (JBWalker1 via Reddit)
- “I urge anyone who is skeptical to play the alpha, as most of it (and I would argue, the most impressive part) is already there.” (nashty27 via Reddit)
However, some users are not satisfied with that. They continue to criticize the long development time and the many bugs in the game itself. Critics would rather see real gameplay instead of scripted concept videos.
- “I just want to say that it’s currently terrible to propose the game. The game has massive server problems that cause all sorts of strange issues, bugs, and crashes.” (Character_Coyote3623 via Reddit)
- Ah, so nothing has changed in the last 10 years that would make it more than the world’s most expensive tech demo (thatguygreg via Reddit)
- “As always, the game looks great, CIG has great marketing, but everything falls apart as soon as you actually look beyond the thin veil of pretty graphics and conceptually impressive design goals.” (Civsi via Reddit)
The trailer for the solo campaign Squadron 42 was also enthusiastically received by the community:
Star Citizen finally shows something that looks like a real game: ‘The wait was worth it’
