Star Citizen's latest free fly event makes the game free-to-play for a limited time, showcasing a selection of eight ships featured in the community's Ship Showdown 2022 event. The ongoing event has players voting on their favorite Star Citizen ships, with the eight featured in the free fly event being the winners of the first round.
Star Citizen hosts free-fly events somewhat regularly to celebrate certain milestones, community events, or just as a way to give new players a chance to try out the game before making the decision to back the project. This current free-fly event will run until September 16, while some of the game's starter packs are also available at a discount should players decide to pull the trigger on a purchase. Star Citizen foregoes the usual up-front purchase options of most games and instead has players buying individual ships in order to access the game, and some of those ships come with a hefty price tag.
While all of Star Citizen's ships can be earned with in-game currency through gameplay, the eight ships featured in Ship Showdown free-fly event are completely free to redeem at the game's spaceports for the duration of the event. These ships include the $600 Carrack, the $475 Origin 600i, the $325 Aegis Redeemer, the $260 Crusader Mercury, the $240 RSI Scorpius, the $125 Argo RAFT, the $70 Aegis Avenger Titan, and the $60 Anvil C8X Pisces Expedition. In total, these eight ships amount to a whopping $2,155 cost, a substantial cash investment for virtual spaceships.
Star Citizen has faced controversy over its exorbitant pricing model that seems to target wealthy "whale" players willing to shell out hundreds of dollars for access to ships, even as the game is still in an incomplete early alpha state. Despite or perhaps because of this, Star Citizen is the most crowdfunded project in history, raising over $400 million in funding over the course of its now 11-year development. Thankfully for interested gamers on a budget, there are still some reasonably priced packages such as the $45 Aurora MR Starter Pack.
Naturally for an in-development game, Star Citizen regularly gets major updates that add new features or refine existing ones, so players who buy into the game can expect plenty of new content in the future as developer Cloud Imperium Games makes more progress. For those on the fence about giving the game a shot, these free-fly events are a great way to see if it's worth the investment.
Star Citizen is available on PC.