Star Citizen"s next major alpha update is finally here, and Cloud Imperium Games is touting some impressive additions to the crowd-funded space sim. Alpha 3.23 has wild animals for players to find or avoid, sprawling industrial locations, an all-new character creator, popular upscaling options for more performance, AI upgrades, and many more features.
Players will finally run into actual wildlife in their travels to hospitable planets now thanks to the addition of Kopion hounds and Marok birds. While the birdlike Marok creatures will leave players alone and tend to disperse when approached, the new four-legged hound-like Kopion fauna can be dangerous if they are encountered in packs.
First-person behavior in zero-G (EVA) has been upgraded with "control, animations, game-play, and finesse," according to developer Cloud Imperium Games. Now players will be holding their bodies in a horizontal "prone" position when maneuvering instead of vertical, while also using hands to push around, giving much more control for the 360-degrees of freedom required for exploration and combat while in space without gravity.
The character creator is another area that has gone through a major overhaul. It now lets players customize their space-faring human"s looks with new head models to begin with, alongside fresh options for facial hair, eyebrows, hairstyles, makeup, and more tweakable aspects.
Moreover, Cloud Imperium Games has updated the Star Citizen engine (StarEngine) with new cloud and water technologies to make them react to ships and other physical items. Examples of this can be seen in the update"s trailer seen at the top of this article. In the same tech front, popular image upscaling solutions from Nvidia and AMD, DLSS and FSR, respectively, have landed too, which should help players gain some extra frames.
A rework of how ships handle for more action-packed dogfighting sessions, updated UI interactions to make the mobiGlas and in-world menu items much easier and more intuitive to use, and new traversable areas filled with industrial facilities for new types of quests involving cargo and ground-based firefights are a part of this update too.
Star Citizen Alpha 3.23: Adventure Beckon is live now for backers, though keep in mind a full aUEC wipe for all accounts has gone through too. The complete patch notes can be seen here.