Star Marine gameplay video highlights the dangers of gunfire in space

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Cloud Imperium Games has shared a new Star Marine trailer with IGN that shows off fresh footage of men and women doing their best to poke holes in the delicate spacesuits they rely on to survive in the cold, hard vacuum of space. The FPS module, which suffered an open-ended delay in the summer of 2015, is now slated to go live—hopefully in the near future—with the rollout of the Star Citizen 2.6 patch.

Star Marine will launch with just two maps and two modes of play, and some of the planned features won't be live at launch. (Who knew, etc.) Those features range from basic FPS moves like sliding into cover, to dramatically more ambitious elements like being able to blow enemies into space by shooting out doors or windows.

"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," Cloud Imperium boss Chris 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."

Roberts also touched on how the studio is trying to fit FPS gameplay, which is traditionally a very murderous sort of entertainment, with the overall Star Citizen universe and its more meaningful take on death. "Obviously we don't want you [to] 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'," he 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."

The Star Citizen 2.6 patch isn't live yet, but backers can jump into it—and Star Marine—right now on the public test universe.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.