Star Citizen FPS called Star Marine
Cloud Imperium Games takes aim.
The first-person shooter portion of PC space game Star Citizen is called Star Marine.
Star Citizen's various parts are divided up into modules. The FPS module will form a part of the campaign portion of Star Citizen, called Squadron 42, as well as the space sim's wider universe.
Star Marine, like the rest of Star Citizen, is built using Crytek's CryEngine - the software used to create the Crysis series - and chief developer Chris Roberts has promised Crysis-level visuals.
Cloud Imperium Games has a number of studios around the world each working on parts of Star Citizen. CIG Austin and Santa Monica, Foundry 42 in Manchester, and Illfonic are all contributing to Star Marine.
In a post on the RobertsSpaceIndustries website, the developer delves deep into the detail of the characters, animation, art, environment, the Zero-G sci-fi sports game Sata Ball, movement, matchmaking, technology and audio of Star Marine. It's pretty comprehensive.
"Since the days of Wing Commander, I've dreamed of integrating a first person shooter with a space sim," Roberts wrote.
"It's such an exciting idea: you might land your fighter on a carrier and then race into battle to repel alien boarders... or you might put down on a seedy border world and fight off pirates eager to steal your cargo! And on a broader level, it speaks to our longtime goal of increasing immersion: you're no longer taken out of the action with between-mission gameflow menus or worse. Instead, from the moment you start the game to the minute you exit, you're living in and interacting with the Star Citizen world!"
At PAX Australia last year developer CIG revealed gameplay from the FPS part of Star Citizen. In the video, below, we see a team of four players explore a space station before a firefight breaks out against enemy players.
In the second section of the video we see Zero-G gunplay, with a push and pull mechanic reminiscent of Hollywood blockbuster Ender's Game.
Then, in March this year, Roberts offered an updated look at the Zero-G gunplay in a presentation at PAX East.
There's still no release date for the first version of Star Marine, but Roberts said CIG plans to revise and update the game post launch.
"Recent weeks have focused on getting our ducks in a row based on our internal testing," he said, "which has lead us to revamp everything from overhauling the network backend to improving the character animations you saw at PAX East to the revamping the zero-g portion of the game to better match our lore."