During a livestream hosted by Cloud Imperium Games, Star Citizen Director Chris Roberts talked about some quite interesting details on the game’s single-player campaign Squadron 42.
First of all, we hear that Squadron 42 will let you select a female protagonist. For now, developers are working with the male skeleton only until all the animations are finalized, and then they’ll move on to the female skeleton and its animation.
Players will be able to customize the looks of their character and to import it into the persistent universe as well.
By completing certain tasks in Squadron 42, players will have access to certain perks in the persistent universe, including unlocking missions or similar content like NPCs that will deal with the players and offer them good for sale.
The idea for this is that Squadron 42 is something the player did in the past of his career in the persistent universe, so their relationships with various crew members and other NPCs are tracked, and some of those will have an impact in Star Citizen.
There might also be veterans’ associations that will provide missions. Basically playing Squadron 42 will give your character past service in the military.
Players’ won’t need to finish Squadron 42 to earn those perks, as they are unlocked at various stages in the story pretty much like a logbook that gets gradually filled. As you unlock each perk, it will apply to the persistent universe. Some of the things the player can do are optional, so you’ll get the related unlock only if you actually do them.
Squadron 42 is actually a trilogy, formed by three episodes, and all of them will be set before the persistent universe.
The second and third episodes will take a shorter time to make than the first, as the technology will be already in place. Roberts mentioned that he thinks that Episode 2 and 3 will develop in a similar way to Wing Commander 2 and 3 compared to the first.
The Coil and the Odin system that we saw in the vertical slice of Squadron 42 will also appear in the persistent universe, even if not at launch.
The game will also feature difficulty options, but “it’s not gonna be too easy.”
Speaking of character customization, what will appear in alpha 3.1 will be rather basic, but the final version will be much more advanced and full-featured. The same final system will appear in Squadron 42.
Choosing your gender and what your face looks like is actually integrated into the story of the game.
Dying will cause you to go back to your last save game. Since missions will be very long and will include several different elements and optional side-content, there will be save points players will be able to take advantage of not to lose two hours of gameplay on the last enemy. That being said, you won’t be able to save too frequently.
Some of the combat missions of the game will have a multiplayer version that you’ll be able to play with your friends, but the main story will be single player.
There are some very big battles and set pieces in which there will be many AI pilots involved, and those fit co-op gameplay well.
Interestingly, there are more big-name actors in the game that have not been revealed yet. Speaking of actors, the performance of the actor playing the player has been fully captured, but developers have yet to decide if it’ll be possible to see “ourselves” in third-person during cutscenes.
You can check out the full video below. If you want to see and learn more, you can enjoy the spectacular vertical slice of the single-player campaign, and a version of the same footage with commentary from the developers, another video featuring the Coil, a teaser starring Mark Hamill. You can also read more about the soundtrack, and the plans for the next major update to the persistent universe, that will be alpha 3.1 in March.
For the sake of full disclosure, please keep in mind that the author of this post is one of the backers of Star Citizen‘s crowdfunding campaign.