Kickstarter darling Star Citizen finally showed off some combat footage at PAX East today, demonstrating what it looks like to board your ship, take off, and engage in dogfights with enemy vessels.
The game's creator, Chris Roberts, played the game in front of a backers-only crowd at the Boston gaming conference today, narrating the events taking place. Star Citizen has smashed crowd-sourcing gaming records: the space flight and ship-creation game has gained more than $40 million in funding from supporters, an astonishingly high total.
The title wowed gamers when it was revealed with its incredibly realistic graphics, including a detailed view from inside the cockpit of a spaceship. It uses Crytek's CryEngine, which explains the impressive graphics--the engine has powered such titles as the gorgeous and difficult to run Crysis.
The next generation of the software, CryEngine 3, looks incredible and will be available with a subscription model, which is a boon to developers who can't play the costly licensing fee.
Star Citizen does not yet have a release date, and is still in the middle of development. The playable dogfight module (DFM) that was shown off today is meant to be a flight simulator in the universe fiction, released to gamers in the future. The DFM mode is expected to be released in about a month.
The rest of the game includes both PvP and PvE elements, where you can compete against AI or other players and team up with your friends. The developers have continued adding features to the game as funding grew in order to repay those who donated to the project. The original goal on Kickstarter was only $500,000, with the amount brought in on the site reaching $2.1 million. The majority of the $40m came in after the Kickstarter drive ended from many enthused fans and future players.
