Playable female characters finally come to Star Citizen Eurogamer.net If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Playable female characters finally come to Star Citizen And cities the size of planets. News by Robert Purchese Senior Staff Writer Updated on 28 Mar 2019 40 comments The milestone Star Citizen alpha 3.5 update arrives for backers this weekend, and it's headline feature, among many, is playable female characters. "This has been a long time coming and it was a huge undertaking," said Star Citizen's head honcho Chris Roberts in a press release. "It involved creating an entirely new 'rig' for female characters to make them physiologically distinct from the male characters, something most games don't try to attempt for player characters." Once lady Star Citizen was finished, it meant everything in the game already - ships, animations, clothing, armour, weapons - had to be retrofitted to work with her. Customising her - and male characters - can be done in an intriguing new way called Gene Splicing, which instead of letting you have direct access over a character's facial features, has you tweaking the amounts of features they inherit from other faces. "The advantage of this approach is you always get realistic looking players, not immersion breaking 'monsters' that sometimes can be created using more traditional techniques," said Roberts. This chap has a bunch of videos exploring alpha 3.5, if you fancy nosing around. Alpha 3.5 also opens a new urban planet called ArcCorp to play in. This is the 'cities the size of planets' place we saw impressively demoed a couple of years ago. This one, around 20 minutes in. On top of that, the entire Star Citizen flight model is being overhauled in alpha 3.5, and planets now have in-atmosphere gravity to deal with. Oh and there will be AI bounty hunters, too. These are by no means all of the updates but the most notable ones. Hit the Star Citizen website for more. Meanwhile, Star Citizen continues to take ages to finish (if it ever will be, har har), and has no final release date. However, developer Cloud Imperium openly shares a roadmap for the year ahead, and the plan is to hit alpha 3.8 by the end of 2019. Beta? Don't know. But maybe we can take a cue from Squadron 42, which is the glossy, standalone, single-player accompaniment to Star Citizen, the one with Hollywood actors like Gillian Anderson and Gary Oldman and Mark Hamill in. A beta for Squadron 42 is officially due mid-2020 - maybe Star Citizen will follow suit? Then again, I've learned with Star Citizen it's important not to get one's hopes up. Become a Eurogamer subscriber and get your first month for £1 Get your first month for £1 (normally £3.99) when you buy a Standard Eurogamer subscription. Enjoy ad-free browsing, merch discounts, our monthly letter from the editor, and show your support with a supporter-exclusive comment flair! Support us View supporter archive More News Splatoon 3 Amiibos will be out next month Ink-coming! 3 Fans think Phil Spencer's shelf is teasing the Xbox Game Pass streaming box UPDATE: Xbox confirms old Keystone prototype. 61 Modder dives into Demon's Souls files following PS5 jailbreak, discovers fabled Ring of the Chieftain Who knows what's nexus? 5 Google announces cloud gaming Chromebooks less than a fortnight after Stadia shutdown GeForce Now preinstalled. 11 Latest Articles Digital Foundry Sennheiser's legendary HD 599 open-back headphones are just £70 at Amazon in the Prime Early Access Sale Comfortable with neutral sound and a wide sound stage. Preview Football Manager's new Console edition is the best you'll get without a PC Getting Touch-right. 1 Splatoon 3 Amiibos will be out next month Ink-coming! 3 Fans think Phil Spencer's shelf is teasing the Xbox Game Pass streaming box UPDATE: Xbox confirms old Keystone prototype. 61 Supporters Only Premium only Off Topic: Take a minute to appreciate Cookin' with Coolio's incredible scallops recipe. What a great book. Premium only Off Topic: Reading City of Glass in comic form "Where exactly am I going?" Premium only Off Topic: Il Buco is a transporting film about a really big hole Underlands. Off-Topic Netflix handled Sandman brilliantly It was Dreamy. 9 Buy things with globes on them And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store! Explore our store