This year’s CitizenCon was not typical for Star Citizen. That’s because the two day-long event was instead condensed into a two hour-long video presentation. It made for a bit less of a spectacle event for players and more a sort of big event steered purely by CIG and its video editing team.
That said, those two hours were definitely jam-packed with update previews and promise, both into the next month and through 2026, as the game got deep into several new additions. Starting off first with the game’s third star system, Nyx.
This new system will arrive to Star Citizen next month, bringing with it the return and refresh of the old Levski landing zone, the constant threat of the Vanduul alien race, a new area known primarily as the Glacium Belt, and three different planets, one of which is being built out by the devs. As a matter of fact, building the system out in front of players is the watchword for Nyx, as 2026 promises to add more missions, POIs, and other activities to the game; more on that later.
Even though Nyx will be expanded across next year, there are still something major going on when it arrives, primarily in the form of an all-new mission that involves players responding to a distress call from a mysterious new faction being attacked by Vanduul, then landing on the station only to be ambushed by this new faction. The mission promises to be repeatable, primarily as players are being tasked by a PMC to uncover more about this group.
The vast majority of 2026 will indeed focus on the system of Nyx, particularly with the application of Genesis, a catch-all name for the “group of technologies” that help with planet technology. Much of this was showcased last year, but now it promises to help create planetary surfaces at scale that takes multiple datasets to create more natural geographic features, mineral distribution, and new biomes like swamps, all mapped out whether on the surface or at orbit. The vast majority of this tech will be applied on the planet Nyx-1, but is also going to be applied to planets in already released star systems.
Plans for 2026 otherwise took up the lion’s share of the CitizenCon presentation, as it offered previews of several new items, features, and additional missions that are in the works. It should be pointed out that none of these had any release windows unlike Nyx’s arrival in November, but some launch details were shared here and there.
First off, there was a segment about upcoming ships and weapons, offering a look at three for each category that were ready to be revealed thus far. For internet spaceships we saw the Anvil Paladin, a high armor heavy gunship that moves slowly but packs multiple guns; the Esperia Stinger, a Vanduul Stinger retrofitted to be piloted by humans that works as a tanky and powerful fighter; and an unnamed ship from Grey’s Market that effectively looks like cobbled together pieces of several different other craft – a sort of Drake Cutlass that grafted other parts on to it.
As for weapons, those include a “space AK” that alternates between firing ballistic and laser shots, a slow-firing and hard-hitting .50 caliber LMG, and a rocket launcher that basically fires three RPG shots at once. The devs also confirmed the upcoming arrival of binoculars. Whether they’ll have a visible glint or not is an open question, apparently.
Circling back to new mission types, CIG is introducing a pair of new mission types next year. First up are system-to-system hauling missions that bring new cargo missions involving transporting items from one star to another (where previously transport was limited to within a system) along with added wrinkles like express missions with tight delivery timers or scripted combat encounters.
Second is a mission that’s currently called Rockcracker, where player teams will have to visit an abandoned mining station that houses an immense asteroid, find a way to turn it back on and clear threats, then blast the asteroid open to fly mining ships inside and mine out the goodies from within the rock.
A first pass at crafting was confirmed to arrive at some point in “the next few months.” Naturally this will be limited, specifically allowing players to create FPS items, but it will also let players make weapons that are better than anything they can buy in a gun store, which is helped by the fact that material quality will influence the final output. In short, players get blueprints, gather materials, and then feed them into a manufacturing machine that can be placed in a personal hangar or lifted onto a ship.
Another big ticket feature coming in 2026 is seamless instancing. Up to this point, practically everything added to the game in terms of activities and missions involved heading to a POI in the open world, but next year promises to leverage instancing in order to create curated experiences designed for smaller groups, whether that’s for PvE or PvP activities, either in closed pre-made groups or more open groups. The devs do promise to not abandon open world content, however, and further point out that PvP could still happen when entering or leaving an instance area.
One of the first applications of instancing due next year will involve the return of the Siege of Orison, turning it from an open world activity into a refreshed and instanced PvE mission for between 15 to 20 players.
The use of instancing tech was a major revelation for CIG, as the studio’s devs said multiple times that it opens up all-new mission types and other content creation doors, whether it’s adding physical NPC mission givers, better solo content for things like tutorials, and sometime down the line, a series of missions involving player teams plumbing the Levski municipal works levels to slowly work through a three-chapter mission that involves repairing systems, clearing out threats, and unlocking additional areas to explore and fix.
Finally, the CitizenCon Direct closed out with a look at an upcoming piece of spaceship-specific content known as tactical strike groups. These appear to be similar to dungeons or raids in terms of complexity, particularly since they will require a varied assortment of ship sizes and weapon types, whether it’s lasers or ballistics, capitals or fighters.
The content plays out in several stages that involve defeating ships attacking a friendly carrier, disabling capital ship-killing turrets by destroying power panels with ballistic fire, flying small ships or using large ships to destroy cores in a very trench run-like manner, and finally landing FPS siege forces to clear out enemies and get captives out. This mission will also introduce a way for capital ships to refuel and rearm smaller craft, and also will bring on a timed element as Vanduul enemies will swarm the station near the final leg of the encounter – and they are apparently bringing a capital ship of their own.
Of course, what was said is impressive, but what was not said also speaks volumes. As mentioned, timelines were few and far between, a true promise of when 1.0 will arrive was not given though the devs continued to remark how updates made now and in the future continue to move that needle, and the devs did promise that not all of 2026’s releases were unveiled. So arguably, it’s all about application of more content at a regular clip and not about calling the game done, it would seem, particularly because the devs remarked that more people are playing – and playing longer – than ever before. But then that’s also arguably been the modus operandi since development started.
Time will see if ambition meets execution, but next year could be a very remarkable one for Star Citizen, assuming CIG makes the additions it promises to.
