While many of the reveals shared by Star Citizen for alpha 3.23 have been focused on the persistent universe portion of the game, the next update is going to be bringing new content to the isolated Arena Commander module as well, and those updates are the focus of this week’s Inside Star Citizen episode.
There will be three new experimental modes in Arena Commander, all of which will introduce a first pass at engineering gameplay features. One mode pits two teams of six in opposing A2 Hercules ships, another has one group of players in an A2 fighting off multiple individual Gladius combat craft, and the last one is a free flight mode that lets players spawn in certain ships to familiarize themselves with the ship’s associated engineering needs. CIG is quick to point out that this will not represent the full engineering gameplay loop, as these modes are testing component damage and overall time-to-kill.
Alpha 3.23 will also add five new spaceship race tracks to Arena Commander as well as make the Miner’s Lament map available for other spaceship gameplay modes. The new update will also bring back private matches with new customization options, introduce streaming tech that promises “quite a lot of fun stuff” to AC, add in-game VOIP, allow players to bring their PU character into Arena Commander, and apply balancing to several existing modes. It’s all outlined in the video waiting below.
Meanwhile, SC has kicked off the last portion of its Overdrive Initiative event, meaning those who want a free rental of a spaceship are now facing a ticking clock, and CIG has put together an FAQ for this year’s CitizenCon.
