Star Citizen hits $100 million, alongside alpha 2.0

Star Citizen, the most ambitious space-sim title to date, has reached its biggest milestone yet, both in crowd funding levels and playable build, as alpha 2.0 is released.

It was already the top crowd funded project ever, yet the numbers continue to get more ridiculous as more of the game is slowly rolled out to backers. Over the past three years more than a million fans have helped fund the game, up to and past the $100 million mark.

“Alpha 2.0 is a major breakthrough,” says developer and creator of Star Citizen, Chris Roberts. “It represents the first true slice of game play that includes much of what Star Citizen will bring to our fans. It’s all technology that has never been undertaken to this scale and depth before in our industry.”

The big news, however, is the release of alpha 2.0, which is now available to all players. The download is quite sizable, especially if you’re starting from scratch, so in the meantime you can watch the 2.0 gameplay trailer here:

See, the big thing about Star Citizen is that it is more than just a space-sim, it’s visioned to be a whole universe, integrating forms of first-person shooter, extra-vehicular activity and, of course, spaceship combat. Now is the first time that all of these things will be merged and accessible to players all at once, and the first time we have a chance to try the ground combat.

As well as the introduction of first-person combat, the 2.0 release includes 17 open-world missions, 20+ random encounters in space, and the highly anticipated multi-crew ships. There’s much more released this time around, so see the full details here. Keep in mind that alpha is alpha, there have been some teething issues with the launcher since 2.0 hit, but things are steadily improving.

If you’re interested in finally jumping on board the band wagon, then backing the project now will buy you one ship (which one depends on how much you’re willing to pay) and access to the alpha, including the full game on release (estimated 2016). You can find out more at the Star Citizen website.