At last, after delays spanning months and years, Star Citizen's highly anticipated first-person shooter module Star Marine will launch with the upcoming 2.6 patch. To celebrate, developer Cloud Imperium Games' CEO Chris Roberts caught up with us to share a brand new trailer that shows off some new footage, as well as to answer a few questions.

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The new trailer follows last month's release of footage for Star Marine in the form of a livestream and a separate five-minute preview taking place in Station Damien, the smaller of the two expected maps. The new trailer, though, shows off the larger Echo Eleven map that's set on an asteroid base and designed for 12 vs. 12 matches, as well as smaller details such as the attention given to character faces.

Above: Check out the new trailer for Star Marine.

“ If you're firing your face is doing different things than if you're getting shot at.

Star Citizen -- Star Marine 4 IMAGES

“ That is all part of what we're trying to do for 3.0 which will allow for depressurization. People getting sucked out, or things getting sucked out.

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Nor, he adds, are they static faces."We have new facial animations, so if you're firing your face is doing different things than if you're getting shot at. There are also a bunch of combat emotes and stuff, so we're adding some stuff that kind of makes it fun if you were playing around you can kind of signal to go around the corner or 'hold back.'""We already model atmosphere and different room volumes, so if a door opens or a window gets broken, it will start to remove the atmosphere from the volume," Roberts said. "That is all part of what we're trying to do for 3.0 which will allow for depressurization. People getting sucked out, or things getting sucked out. If you have a suit on you'll be okay. If you don't have a suit on, you'll asphyxiate."Games like Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare share some of the ideas he and his team have in mind, he said, but they were generally used in "specific, scripted story struts." The appeal of Star Marine, he says, is that these ideas will be built into the actual multiplayer battles. And he has more in mind than just environmental effects.

Above: Star Citizen's major casting news.

“ In the future you'll be limping, or, if your right arm is ruined, you won't be able to hold a weapon in it.

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I pointed out that some viewers weren't too happy about some of what they saw from the other recent footage, most notably that it seemed like other players took far too long to kill. But Roberts said that it won't always be like that in the matches."We all had people running around with medium armor, which has a fair amount of damage absorption," he said. "In Star Marine, you'll be able to have light armor or heavy armor. Heavy armor obviously takes more damage, but you move slower. Light armor, you move quicker but you can't take as much damage."

Above: A Star Citizen trailer from 2012.

“ Star Marine currently will launch with two maps and two different modes.

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"Obviously we don't want you get up in your spaceship in the mini-PU and somebody just shoots you once and Pow!, you're dead. You're like, 'Ooh, okay. That wasn't that much fun,'" Roberts said. "That is one of the big challenges with Star Citizen, is that there are so many different aspects of it, whether it's the on-ground FPS, or flying ships, or wandering around talking and interacting with people."Star Marine currently will launch with only two maps and two different modes. Elimination is a standard deathmatch mode that awards victory for getting the most kills, while the Land Stand mode sees players fighting for control of four different computer terminals. Eventually players will be able to see their progress on a global leaderboard and select specific loadouts for Star Marine, but those features won't be implemented until a future patch.

Above: Last year, the Star Citizen team showed off a prototype of the game's multi-cruise ship.

“ Roberts didn't give an actual release date, but Patch 2.6 shouldn't be too far off.

"Blizzard does a lot of this honing behind closed doors. It takes them quite a while, to hone and iterate. Then they release something, and generally it plays really well," Roberts said. "I think we're just trying to do the same thing, but much more public. We're inviting the community to participate in that. Here's what we think works well, and if it doesn't work well we're looking at it and adjusting it, and honing it, iterating it. It's very different than I've done stuff in the past.Roberts didn't give an actual release date, but Patch 2.6 shouldn't be too far off. If you're a Star Citizen backer, you can already download the patch for Star Citizen's Public Test Universe and start playing Star Marine immediately. Cloud Imperium included a full rundown of the changes coming in Patch 2.6 in a recent Reddit post.

Also, if you'd like to check out Star Marine, Cloud Imperium has kindly provided a code for IGN readers that gets you a free trial! Go here to register an account, insert the code (WELCOME2SC), then wait for an email them to let you know when the Free Fly begins. It’ll be a 48-hour free fly and you'll be provided with a Sabre to fly during that time. And of course you'll also be able to check out all the new Star Marine content detailed here and in the trailer.

Leif Johnson is a contributing editor to IGN who writes about games on a ranch in remote South Texas. You can follow him on Twitter at @leifjohnson