Star Citizen Arena Commander V.8 now available

After a brief delay, Star Citizen's Arena Commander V.8 update is now live.

Ozzie Mejia

June 4, 2014 4:30 PM

10

After a brief delay that was caused by some pesky bugs, Star Citizen has released its Arena Commander V.8 update. Creator Chris Roberts delivered the good news earlier today, while detailng the full list of features that are being added.

Star Citizen's new features include the following (via Roberts Space Industries):

• Improved client and multiplayer server stability

• General performance optimizations and fixes for hardware specific issues discovered during community testing

• Audio improvements with additional SFX, music, mix, and improvements to the dynamic music system

  Improvements to the HUD to better differentiate the manufacturers, improve ITTS, and add mouse control functionality

• Additional character animations to add immersion to the cockpit and resolve outstanding animation issues

• Further flight model upgrades to better handle unique thruster power combinations and refine the control of each ship

• Additional ship, weapon, item, and thruster tuning to improve the balance of Arena Commander based on community testing

• New multiplayer game mode for public testing along with AI improvements and updates to Vanduul Swarm.

• Hangar bug fixing along with enhanced visuals and animations.

• Cockpit polish with improved damage effects and more dynamic lighting that responds to gameplay events and ship status.

• Some additional weapons and items for use with Arena Commander.

• Update player breathing sound effects and responses to incoming impulses and g-forces

Roberts also released a full Arena Commander manual before going into the reasons for the update's delay. The creator is also hoping to prevent these sorts of delays in the future, soliciting users for feedback in the game's bug forums. Users are already putting this forums to work, as Polygon is reporting on a locking issue that the developers are currently examining.

"Your part in testing Arena Commander is the heart of what I think makes the approach to how we are building Star Citizen so strong for the long term health and fun of the game," Roberts added. "We are deliberately sharing the game at a much earlier stage than any traditional AAA game and also much earlier than a lot of other crowd funded games. We want to get aspects of the game, even if they only represent one facet, into the hands of the people who made this game possible in the first place. These builds are early enough that the feedback from people who love this genre so much they've been willing to put their money up way in advance of getting the finished product can be actioned on, allowing us to build a better, more stable game in the long run."

Star Citizen has currently raised over $44.6 million raised and is eyeing a 2015 release window.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?