Should you Buy Star Citizen? Top 5 Questions for Curious Gamers

There are a lot of Yes and No replies here, but remember that only you can decide for yourself if you’ll enjoy Star Citizen. The purpose of this video is help you make an informed decision.

Gotta love the answer right at the front.

It should also be stated expensive ships tend to be multicrew. For new players I think it's important to point out that ships with multiple turret slots need actual people to operate them. Plenty of other space games have that stuff automated so a new player may not realize a hammerhead is useless without friends.

The biggest problem I have with SC is that once you get over the learning curve of all the various mechanics, you start to realize how little actual gameplay there really is. At times I would say it feels less like a spiritual successor to EVE/ED & more like “Microsoft Spaceflight Simulator w/ missions”. If CIG could just get all the remaining professions (especially Exploration) in the game along with maybe 10 of the 100 star systems, I think SC would definitely be a serious contender for one of the best games ever. But as it stands, I tend to just play off & on, follow along with the development, and don’t have anywhere near $1,000 invested.

#1 tip: get a cheap starter pack when starting out, and experiment with ships in game before committing to anything. Most people will let you test drive their ships, and you can always change ships later if your interests change

For me, Star Citizen is therapy. I am brand new to the game, but I like the slower pace nature of it, and on top of all that, there's so much to explore and do as a new player. Plus, I love how cinematic the game is! Really such a nice change of pace from the games I've been playing. I have you and a few others to thank for making me a Citizen of the Stars.

This will be the video for now if someone asks me about the game. Though I missed one bullet point when you talked about the bigger more expensive ships: Operational complexity and cost. I think this is important since the combat meta might change in the future. On the other hand i would claim that one of the core principles behind the big ship designs which is less likely to change is that they are conceptualized around player groups.

Great video and exactly what I needed! I used to follow the development very closely like…7+ years ago, but stepped away and now so much has changed that it’s hard to understand exactly where things are now. This helped so much. Please keep making these periodically! Always love your analyses. Can reliably get a clear picture without all the drama/hate discourse that most other YouTubers engage in. Any chance you can do an update on where SQ42 is at now?

I tried out star citizen during their recent free fly event. Buggy mess does not even begin to describe things. My very first interaction with the game, getting out of bed, caused me to fall through the world and die. Any starting gear I might have been given was lost since if it's on your person when you die it stays with your body (and my body was now below the map). Don't get attached to any gear you buy either: If it's on your ship and your game crashes while in quantum, it's gone because you don't get any of your ships inventory back when you claim your ship. The final straw for me was when I attempted to move my belongings from one starter location to another. I loaded them into my ship, flew out of the hangar, was well clear before going to turn skyward, and abruptly detonated for no apparent reason. Inside a safe zone my ship just exploded. For no reason. Destroying every single last bit of gear I had. Again. I want to like Star Citizen, I really do. I can see the potential it has, and if they fix the awful buggy mess they have it's going to be amazing. But it's not where it needs to be yet. $500 million and 10+ years of development and I die *getting out of bed*? Seriously?

I tried paying like 6 times yesterday. Nothing works and everything that didn't work was game breaking every time. Lighting and 1% FPS were much better but so much stuff was broken I literally could not play the stupid thing.

Great video! My personal tips for new players: - Multiplayer is 100% where the fun is at! - Remember you can rent ships for a specific activity - Try different things to see what you like best: deliveries, mining, fps bunkers, bounties, tracking players, trading, etc - Don't be afraid to ask for help & ask for tips

I'm one of those very disappointed backers. Pledged back in 2015. And I can say with confidence that after so many years in development Star Citizen is still just a shell of a game. Its pretty tho. Every time I go back to it, once or twice a year, I get bit mad about the state of the this "half a billion dollar budget" game...

getting cave missions for fps is a good way to get big empty box with you and clear the cave of the gems :) its a good boost for moneys

Bro, very well put together video! Randomly came across this and was very informative. Kudos!

Part of the problem for paying for ships (other than the fact that most of the money goes towards a game you don’t want) is that there really isn’t much progression in Star Citizen. Grinding for auec so you can buy cool ships is really the only major gameplay loop atm. There’s no long haul exploration with only one system, no homesteading/base building, no hunting animals/creatures, it’s mainly ships.

As a backer since '16; I really appreciate the fair and neutral POV. Its important to not edit out the bugginess. You also cover most of the game pretty well. I will be sharing this.

I think you should be commended for immediatly answering the question in your video title. Every single youtuber should take notes right here.

I would totally agree with this video with one thing to add: if you keep all this in mind, I would recommend seeing what it has to offer just because the $45 I spent originally and the $25 upgrade I got later was totally worth it just to experience the fully-realized ships and planets. Just flying around for a few hours is like nothing else and you’ll see out there and makes it feel worth it to support the project even if you’re not playing regularly.

Excellent, well rounded explanation of where the game's at. Love the concept for this video....start with no...then see if you overcome the hurdles. I'm very much a wait and see and in for the long haul. I've been a backer since 2014...basically when Arena Commander started. My hurdle for getting into the game has been setting up my desired hardware setup, though I have a couple ways I can improve it further. I finally got that (mostly) sorted, so configuring it is my next hurdle. The configurations in the game are mind boggling, and honestly a hurdle unless you go with the standard gamer setup (WASD, etc)(I don't). Configuring for some other setup, is quite a task. Doesn't help when updates come out and wipe the configuration I have, as has happened several times. Right now I'm seeing is not really a good time in game, so I'm laying off. I'll try again when I see a more stable update. I still keep up on news...getting the general sentiment of the updates.

Very informative, and thanks for the widesceen format, much appreciated.