Roberts Space Industries and Cloud Imperium Games released alpha 3.5.0 to backers of Star Citizen. The latest update adds ArcCorp’s Area 18 city environment to the game, and boy oh boy does it capture the Blade Runner cyberpunk feel so much better than I thought it was.

The launch of the update isn’t so much what’s special as the actual gameplay of alpha 3.5.0. One of the things that really amazed me was the new grav trams that will take you across ArcCorp and give you a really cool look at the massive city.

There’s a really slick video that YouTuber Citizen Gamer put together, which is half an hour of going through the new Area 18 environment, checking out the tram system, and giving gamers a look at the new location in the latest alpha build of Star Citizen.

So just for reference, the first 10 minutes of the video covers Area 18 and the tram ride back to the ArcCorp city hangars. After the 17 minute mark you finally get to see him flying through ArcCorp city. He also showcases some of the random landing pads scattered throughout the city.

Funnily enough, he notes that the city is denser than what was demonstrated in the pre-release promotional videos for 3.5, which is quite impressive. It’s like a giant, interactive version of Corsucant from Star Wars, but you actually get to walk, run, and fly around in the city.

According to the Roberts Space Industries forums, the update also comes with an IFCS to improve auto-pilot to avoid your ship interacting with a no fly zone, along with some new missions, and the flight model improvements.

YouTuber Bored Gamer also did a complete rundown of the changelog, which includes the new DNA character creation, the new NPC quest giver, and a bunch of new quality of life features, such as improvements to contact lists, UI accessibility, and tons of crash fixes.

The changelog doesn’t really capture just how awesome Area 18 is, but thankfully there’s a gameplay tour that walks gamers through the Blade Runner-inspired city hub, which looks astounding.

There’s a lot of neon signs, tons of lights, lots of glowing emissions and smog everywhere, which all help to give Area 18 a feeling of a bustling city. It feels a lot more like the cyberpunk city atmosphere that we expected but don’t seem to be getting from Cyberpunk 2077.

You can see what the dense city is like with the tour of the area below, courtesy of Bored Gamer.

I think what’s funny is that while the build is still in alpha, there are still some players roaming about and running around in the video above. I can only imagine what a place like Area 18 would look like once the build stabilizes and more players begin populating the servers.

I can also imagine the streets getting flooded with Chinese and South Korean gamers selling goods for cheap around the monument while AFK. That’s when you know the game has achieved peak MMO status.

Anyway, if you already purchased an alpha build of the game you can check out Area 18 and ArcCorp right now with the release of alpha 3.5.0. You can learn more about the game by visiting the official website.