Cloud Imperium Games has decided to do away with the Alpha access and module passes which sectioned off various portions of Star Citizen, and has decreed that all backers will now be able to play the entire game.
Studio founder Chris Roberts made the announcement in one of his Letters From the Chairman blog posts, in which he also revealed that the game now has one million backers.
”In honor of our newest Citizen (really, our thousands of new Citizens!) we would like to give something back to the entire community for all your incredible support,” Roberts writes. ”Starting today, we are eliminating ‘Alpha Access’ and the $5 module passes. Anyone who has pledged for a Star Citizen Package can now play today without worrying they won’t have access to some portion of the ‘Verse in the future. No Star Marine pass, no Alpha 2.0 pass… no additional payment needed for any module in the works, pre-release. Going forward, should we need to put out some sort of limited release it will be done through the PTU test server. All backers will have access to any live release, the moment it publishes.”
Backers who bought Alpha access packages will be compensated with 10,000 UEC in-game credits, and anyone who purchased an Arena Commander pass will get $5 in-store credit - originally Roberts had said they would get 5,000 UEC, but a community manager cleared a few things up in a subsequent forum post.
This will all take a while to process, so if you’re an Alpha access backer you may have to wait a few days for your credits. Meanwhile, Cloud Imperium continues to beaver away on Star Citizen’s Alpha 2.0, which is coming in ”the near future”.
