Today Cloud Imperium Games announced the schedule of its Intergalactic Aerospace Expo (IAE) 2954, which will also bring a free fly event.
The event, which is hosted directly in the game, will start on November 22 and end on December 5. During the entire duration of the event, anyone will be able to download the game without the requirement of pledging any money and try out all the flyable ships and vehicles, which are now over 150.
The expo, which is hosted in the city of New Babbage on planet Microtech, will host ship manufacturers on a rolling calendar. Each day will feature two different manufacturers (or groups of manufacturers) across two different halls. Every manufacturer will be hosted for two days.
Below you can find the full calendar.
One of the biggest draws of this year’s event is the launch of the RSI Polaris, which will be the first combat-oriented capital-class ship to be available for players to own in the persistent universe.
With its 166m-long hull, it’s pretty massive, and it’s designed to be crewed by six to twelve players.
You can see it in action in the trailer below. Of course, it’ll be available to try during the free fly event.
If you’re wondering about the “2954” date, the Star Citizen universe counts time dynamically following the real-world calendar, so the date “in lore” is always 930 years in the future.
IAE is usually the biggest event of the year for the growing space simulator, and traditionally, it also marks the biggest revenue of the year as several new ships and vehicles are released for backers to purchase. It’ll be interesting to see if this year will be the same.
Speaking of events, Cloud Imperium Games also released a second video, bringing up behind-the-scenes of the recently hosted CitizenCon.
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 exclusive for PC.
The game has recently passed $736 million in crowdfunding ($736,268,654 at the moment of this writing) and counts 5,388,688 registered users. Of course, many of them aren’t paying customers, as they register accounts to enjoy Free Fly Events like one that’s coming at IAE
Recently, we got to see plenty of features and tech coming to the game, on top of the overall vision for version 1.0, which will be the full release of the game, albeit it doesn’t yet have a date.
The game will also have a single-player campaign titled Squadron 42, starring an exceptional cast of famous actors including Mark Hamill, Henry Cavill, Gary Oldman, Liam Cunningham, Gillian Anderson, and more. Recently we saw plenty of gameplay and learned that it’ll release in 2026.
Since the project has been in development for over a decade, you can also see how Squadron 42 evolved since its first reveals.
Full disclosure: the author of this article has backed Star Citizen’s crowdfunding campaign.
