Yes, but it's still very much WIP. The end of this year is when the more complete modules start coming out (such as the first episode of the single player campaign!)
Right now there are two aspects that are available:
- Hangar -- This is where you go to just check out your ships and start Arena Commander
- Arena Commander -- In-fiction, it's a simulator. There are a variety of game modes to play though, and includes both co-op, PvP combat and racing modes.
For the schedule, this is currently what's on deck:
- FPS Module (End of the month) - First FPS gameplay
- Multi-crew ships (middle of the year) - First gameplay which will allow multiple players to be on a single ship and take different stations (I'll be captain, you'll be gunner, someone else will be in engineering, etc)
- Squadron 42 Episode 1 (end of the year) - This is the first 10 missions or so of the single player campaign! Estimated around 10 hours of gameplay.
- Persistent Universe Alpha (end of the year) - First glimpse of everything coming together for the main game (Star Citizen itself).
Official 1.0 release is tentatively scheduled for end of 2016, though whether they hit that date is dependent on the above schedule, and the feedback they get. They don't have a publisher, so if they release something and they decide to rework it to make a better game, they can.
Now, the reason they can pull off this ambitious schedule with multiple releases in quick succession is that there are a LOT of studios they've created who work on different portions. For example, Santa Monica is what mainly works on Arena Commander, Austin studio mainly works on Persistent Universe, UK office works on Squadron 42 and Illfonic (contracted studio) works on FPS module. There are a couple of other studios such as a web team, AI team, etc... Overall there's around 250-300 people working on the game.
For buying the game, you have basically two options.
1) If you don't care about getting access to the beta and only want the final game, get this for $30 (final price of the game will be $60 so it's 50% off):
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/Packages/Aurora-MR
2) If you do want access to the
beta, you can choose between two ships and it costs $45. Choose whichever one looks cooler to you.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/Packages/Aurora-MR-AC-Starter
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/Packages/Mustang-Alpha-AC-Starter
They sold out of alpha slots a while ago, however, the way they are handling it is that if you can buy a "pass" to that module for $5 to handle additional server costs. The two packages above have the Arena Commander pass already, so you can play everything that's available right now. FPS Module may require you to buy a pass however, but it remains to be seen. However, as I bolded, those packages include beta access, slated for the first half of 2016 so you can just wait until then to start playing as well.
The ships being available at different tiers is literally just an extension of the Kickstarter rewards that they did. They were crazily successful, so it makes sense to keep it going because of how ambitious they've been able to make the game. When the game launches, you will not be able to buy ships with money, and will need to earn it in-game by playing. Suffice to say, you can just buy the cheapest package available (above) and you'll do just fine in the game.
I was always curious how this or Elite Dangerous play but I knew I couldn't be invested enough to justify paying money so this is great. I wonder how my 7970 Ghz will fare though. Also, If I only have the choice between keyboard and mouse and a Dualshock 3 or Dualshock 4, which should I pick for the controls?
Really, though, the gamepad controls are pretty good. I don't think I could play this with just a KB/mouse, but lots of people seem to love it.
