As the weekend begins, Cloud Imperium Games makes it a happy one for all those who have contributed money to the funding campaign for its upcoming space simulator game Star Citizen by officially releasing the long-awaited Alpha 2.0 update for the game. Star Citizen Alpha 2.0 is already live for all players, and the developer has released a full set of features and patch notes for the latest update. This major update comes as the game’s crowdfunding nears another major milestone – surpassing the $100 million mark.

Alpha 2.0 is the Biggest Update to Star Citizen - Tons of New Features Introduced as the Game Nears $100 Million Milestone in Funding

　　In addition to the first-person combat and other new features, Star Citizen Alpha 2.0 brings three new flyable ships: the Vanduard, the Retaliator, and the Constellation. Players also get to explore the planet Crusader, one of the new locations, and traverse the vast map speedily with Quantum travel feature. According to Cloud Imperium Games, Alpha 2.0 is "major development milestone in Star Citizen's evolution. ... This is the biggest update to Star Citizen yet."

　　Below you will find the freshly released gameplay trailer, a statement regarding the update from Chris Roberts, creator of Star Citizen, and a list of some of the key features of the latest Alpha 2.0 update. A full list of the new features can be found here.

　　“Alpha 2.0 is a major breakthrough for Star Citizen. It represents the first true slice of gameplay that includes much of what Star Citizen will bring to our fans: thrilling space combat in a massive play area, first person battles, and multi-crew ships where you and your friends can adventure together in a portion of the universe on the same ship. It’s all technology that has never been undertaken to this scale and depth before in our industry.”

Star Citizen Alpha 2.0 Key Features

　　One planet (Crusader)

　　Three moons

　　Three distinct space stations

　　One repair/restock station

　　Nine comm arrays

　　Wreckage to scavenge and never-ending battles in the Yela asteroid belt

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　　On top of the release of Star Citizen Alpha 2.0 update, the forthcoming simulator is also very, very close to achieving a pretty significant milestone by garnering a whopping $100 million in crowdfunding since the campaign for the project opened around three years ago. In 2014, Star Citizen was recognized by Guinness World Records as the most successful crowdfunded project of any type in existence, so the $100 million mark will just be another milestone for the game.

　　"We are forever grateful for our backers and fans," Roberts said. "They been there from the beginning when we launched Star Citizen's funding campaign three years ago. And they've helped create the most passionate and loyal community in our industry. They are helping us every step along the way in creating the best damn space sim ever."

　　Star Citizen has been a 100% crowdfunded project ever since it was announced back on October 10, 2012. The money that now more than one million backers helped raise pays for the development of the game as well as the Robert Space Industries platform, where fans and backers can directly interact with the team, and do much more stuff. Star Citizen has millions of eyes on it as it attempts to bring space fighter sim genre back to life, and with that amount of money at the developer’s disposal, fans have extremely high expectations from the game.

　　Cloud Imperium Games has not made any official announcement regarding the release date of the final, complete version of Star Citizen. The game is being developed with Crytek’s game development engine known as CryEngine, and is expected to launch on Microsoft Windows and Linux.