Up until this point in the game’s development and testing, only backers at the premium tier were able to play all of the modules. Lower level backers had access to lots of content, but had to wait until after the premium members explored it first, before they would eventually be allowed in. The game’s one million backers can now play all available modules without purchasing the Alpha Access tier or the $5 module passes.
The game’s creator, Chris Roberts, explained the change in his latest address to the community…
Players who have already paid the piper for premium access will be compensated with in-game currency. Sometime in the next few days Alpha Access pass holders will receive 10,000 UEC and Arena Commander pass holders will receive 5,000 UEC. If that doesn’t feel like fair compensation, then I’m sure we’ll hear from the community shortly.
Star Citizen has a lot of eyes on it as it attempts to single-handedly revive the space fighter sim genre and live up to the hype of its incredibly successful crowd-funding campaign. The road to release has been a long one and the community has experienced its fair share of drama, but the general feedback on the game has remained positive. The threat of feature creep has been very real as more features and assets were added with each stretch reward, but hopefully a finished version of the game will arrive sometime before the end of 2016.
Do you think it’s a good thing that all backers can now access brand-new modules or should some gameplay content be reserved for premium backers? Let us know in the comments.
Star Citizen is expected to release for PC in 2016.
