Star Citizen continues its reputation as one of the most highly-anticipated, yet controversial games around, mainly because the ambitious space-based game has a large amount of crowdfunding but no final release date. Even with many uncertainties for the game’s future, people are still giving the developers money. This past weekend, another milestone was reached as the total funding for Star Citizen passed $100 million.

The timing worked out perfectly, as the game’s alpha was updated to version 2.0 this weekend. The latest version finally included some features that early backers thought would come earlier, such as first-person shooting, multi-crew ships (which also means new ships specifically for multiple players), and a new planet to explore (along with some moons and space stations).

Upgrades to spaceflight were also added, specifically two new flight modes -- Precision and Cruise Mode -- which help out in landing and reaching top speed, respectively. Pilots can also use afterburners to get a little boost mid-flight. EVAs (extravehicular activity) are a more common sight now as players can get out of their ships and explore the emptiness of space or simply fly around their local space station.

The funding for the game started in September 2012. One month later, backers raised $2 million. Since then, the developers put stretch goals if various levels of funding were successful, such as a facial capture system at $22 million, or a new salvage ship at $32 million. However, the goals stopped after the $65 million mark. The last reward allowed developers to work on a modular feature for “any suitable ships” in the game, so that pilots can swap interior and exterior parts to build a spacecraft suitable for combat, mining, bounty hunting, or whatever hobby they wish to partake in the large in-game universe.

The seemingly endless amount of money also allowed the developers to enhance the game’s single-player campaign, titled Squadron 42, with a cast of celebrities such as Gary Oldman, Mark Hamill, Gillian Anderson and Andy Serkis.

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Rexly Peñaflorida II is a Contributor at Tom’s Hardware. He writes news on tech and hardware, but mostly focuses on gaming news. As a Chicagoan, he believes that deep dish pizza is real pizza and ketchup should never be on hot dogs. Ever. Also, Portillo’s is amazing.

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