It was back in 2023’s CitizenCon that Cloud Imperium Games showcased volumetric clouds as one of the major visual updates coming to Star Citizen, and the tech has now locked in Alpha 3.23 as its arrival date, with EPTU players already enjoying it a lot.
As you may already know, Alpha 3.23 is already being tested by a select number of players, and every now and then, we get some exciting screenshots from the lucky players who can try out the upcoming features early, but one thing that has left almost all of them in awe is the new cloud representation.
Not that clouds didn’t exist in Star Citizen previously, but the new volumetric clouds make it look much more realistic. Based on what is being shared online by EPTU players, it does look exactly like the clouds CIG showcased in the recent CitizenCon, which helps them look more fluffy and spongy, as the clouds look in real life.
While most upcoming changes with Alpha 3.23 require players to actually test them before calling them successful, volumetric clouds do seem like a great new achievement for Star Citizen, even in the EPTU build that could have some serious bugs.
While the majority of the community sounds amazed by the new clouds, some other changes like Master Mode have indeed divided the EPTU testers. Some players believe that the new way of flying with ships feels more realistic, while there is a second group that claims Master Mode will ignore player skills in maneuvering with ships.
While we can’t confirm any of these perspectives, Master Mode is another locked-in feature for Alpha 3.23, and we all will eventually get our chance to find out whether it’s been a step forward or not. While Alpha 3.23 doesn’t have a release date yet, based on CIG’s previous communications, it should be ready to release on live servers later in April or earlier in May this year.
