Just a month after its last free event, Star Citizen is free-to-play again, from now until 22nd August, 2024.

That means everyone can jump in and give the space sim a chance, as well as try out all "top 16 ships", "granting both green and grizzled pilots the ability to try out eligible ships before choosing which one to vote for" at this year's Ship Showdown event.

For the last few weeks, the community has been voting for their favourite ships and ground vehicles with their own "original creations", including videos, songs, photos, paintings, and more.

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Star Citizen has raised over $700m in crowdfunding, even though it still lacks a full release date.

As spotted by Neowin, the funding tracker for Cloud Imperium Games' space sim has seen an uptick in donations recently. On 25th May alone, almost $3m was raised.

This has coincided with Star Citizen's free play period which kicked off earlier this month, and allowed non-backers to give the game a whirl for themselves. At the time of writing, Star Citizen has raised a whopping $702,634,839. And - again - it isn't even fully out yet, and is still in an early access build.

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Star Citizen is free to play until 29th May 2024.

The free play period – timed to mark Invictus Launch Week 2954 – enables players to download and play the game for free during the event and "test pilot all 87 military vehicles for a limited time", with all ships available to test drive for the final three days of the show. You can also expect "surprise reveals" throughout the week, too.

"A variety of collaborative in-game events designed in the spirit of 'One Empire', and how each citizen’s individual contributions help create humanity's unrivaled power of unity that has taken it beyond the stars, showcase the might of the UEE Navy and invites citizens to explore the vessels that keep the ‘verse safe," Cloud Imperium Games teases.

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UPDATE 29/02/24: Cloud Imperium Games has responded to Eurogamer confirming "some minor staffing changes" due to a return to office work.

The statement in full reads: "As part of our normal processes, we regularly look for ways to make our operations more efficient, which can include restructuring in order to place a position closer to the team it supports.

"Now that we are back in office and seeing the progress and quality of work when our teams are in-person working together, we have decided to co-locate as much development as possible, which has resulted in some minor staffing changes as we move some development positions closer to their core teams. As a result of this consolidation, a small number of positions were eliminated and we continue to recruit for key roles within the company."

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