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Flashy new Star Citizen trailer Hamills it up

Winging it.

Star Citizen, the crowdfunded $200m video game, put out a fancy new trailer showing off the story - and its impressive celebrity cast.

Squadron 42 is the single-player "spaceflight sim" that acts as a companion, as the developers put it, to the "persistent-world" game Star Citizen.

It's got one hell of a cast: Mark Hamill (who starred in Chris Roberts' Wing Commander games), Gillian Anderson, Gary Oldman, Mark Strong, John Rhys-Davies and Andy Serkis.

The trailer is a moody space war setup, with big ships and big speeches. There's a few seconds of what looks like gameplay - a dogfight alongside a huge spaceship.

Here's the official blurb:

"Join the brave men and women of the 2nd Fleet as they stand strong against the greatest threats the UEE has ever faced. Will you answer the call?"

Watch on YouTube

Cloud Imperium Games released the trailer as part of its annual fan event, CitizenCon. Meanwhile, Alpha 3.3 launched to backers. This includes FoIP - face over internet protocol. Here, you plug in your webcam and your character mimics your own facial expressions, even tracking your lips for speaking. Alpha 3.3 also adds AI enemies to the Stanton System and missions, performance improvements and, of course, loads of new ships.

At CitizenCon, CIG showed off the planet Hurston (the first planet in Star Citizen) and Lorville (its main city). The video, below, is an hour's worth of gameplay, exploring the city with narration from Roberts.

Watch on YouTube

CIG also showed off in-game ship buying with earned in-game currency, which is a change for the developer's business model and a "key step" towards making all ships earnable in-game. This will hit the game at some point before the end of the year.

Star Citizen is still without a release date, some six years after its Kickstarter campaign.

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