Today, Cloud Imperium Games launched a new Free Fly event for its space sim Star Citizen, making the game free-to-play for a limited time.
Specifically, the game will be playable without any purchase for 11 days, until April 28. In order to participate, you just have to create a free account on the official site, then go to this page and click “fly for free.”
You’ll then get a link to download the launcher, and you’ll be all set.
This particular Free Fly Event will give you access to six different ships to get you started: the Drake Cutter starter, the Anvil Arrow fighter, the MISC Fortune salvager, the Crusader C1 Spirit light transport, the MISC Prospector mining ship, and the Drake Corsair expedition and exploration gunship.
These ships are pretty much all you need to enjoy several of Star Citizen’s gameplay loops, including combat (both PvE and PvP), mining, salvaging, and cargo.
We also get a new video focusing on how Star Citizen’s new (and rather fabulous) hair is created under the leadership of Lead Hair Artist Andre Pires, including the hair for the single-player campaign Squadron 42.
Incidentally, we hear that we can expect 30 new hairstyles to come to Star Citizen across various patches this year.
If you’re unfamiliar with Star Citizen, it’s a crowdfunded project directed by Chris Roberts of Wing Commander fame. It’s a multiplayer sandbox space simulator that has been in development for over a decade and in alpha for several years. It’s available exclusively for PC and has just received update Alpha 4.1.
In the meantime, the crowdfunding total continues to grow, and it recently passed $804 million. To be precise, it’s currently at $804,359,020. The game also has 5,594,961 registered users, albeit not all of them are paid customers. Many simply create an account to enjoy the occasional free-to-play periods like the one launched today.
2024 was the second-best year ever for Star Citizen’s crowdfunding campaign, missing the record only by roughly one million.
The single-player campaign titled Squadron 42 is also in active development starring an exceptional cast of famous actors, including Mark Hamill, Henry Cavill, Gary Oldman, Liam Cunningham, Gillian Anderson, and more.
Since the project has been in development for over a decade, you can see how Squadron 42 has evolved since its first reveals.
Full disclosure: the author of this article has backed Star Citizen’s crowdfunding campaign.