Star Citizen dogfighting shown at PAX East, crowd goes wild

Sometimes, just sometimes, the whooping and hollering you get at conventions feels acceptable.

Sometimes, just sometimes, the whooping and hollering you get at conventions feels acceptable. The first in-game footage of the dogfighting element of Star Citizen, which was shown by Chris Roberts at PAX East today, feels like it might be just such an occasion. Might.

The game, which has already raised over $41 million through crowdfunding, is pitched as Roberts' vision of the perfect space simulator. Until now, a lot of that has been based on ambitious promises and goodwill from an audience that wants to believe in a detailed, Oculus Rift-enabled game about being an interstellar ace.

Seeing Star Citizen in action today makes that belief a lot easier. You can hear the crowd go wild for the little details: that helmet flip animation as the pilot gets into the ship, the fact he can pass out if he pulls too much g-force, the way the headlights bounce off debris in space…

There's plenty of gameplay in the first part of the presentation, above, while in the second half, below, Roberts explains how the standalone multiplayer dogfighting module, Arena Commander, will fit into the game's fiction as a virtual reality game within the game.

Star Citizen backers will get access to Arena Commander in the next couple of months. It will come with a few ships, levels, and modes. It might not sound like much, but on this evidence it will help the belief grow even further. And as Roberts said, it's just something for players to do while they wait for the full game, which should launch early next year.