The flight blades improve flight speed and handling of your spaceships. So far, however, only against real money.
For this year's Star Citizen Invictus celebrations, CIG presented a new item that should not only make it easier to control ships, but also increase the reachable speed on a straight route. Since then, the “Flight Blades” has caused horror among the players.
The trigger for this is: A Paywall. Now CIG is reacting to the criticism and praising improvement for the future.
The problem with the flight blades
What exactly happened? On May 15, 2025, the developers provided A new item called Flight Blades before with which players can upgrade a selection of spaceships. In summary, speed and maneuverability can be improved – values that you like to say “yes”.
The problem: To release the Flight Blades, they can only be purchased for real money – Unlike others, which can also be bought with the Ingame currency AUEC and can therefore be earned at no cost.
The article announced that although this is temporary and the Flight Blades “this summer” are also available for AUEC, there was still no outcry.
The flight blades look quite inconspicuous, but have triggered a large wave of outrage.
There are numerous comments under the posting that criticize the decision:
- “The sale of performance -related modules behind a paywall, even for a short period of time, still corresponds to the definition of Pay2win and is not fine, cig.” (NO84)
- »Supporting comment. That is unacceptable. « – Snowlyknight
This is the most embarrassing that I have seen from this company so far. […] It is not really about Pay2win, but about prioritizing objects that you cannot lose and removing the aspect of the actual play.
– SaltEMike
“We made a mistake”
In one new forum contribution CIG goes into the response of the community and provides reasons why this decision was made in this way.
The principle of developing Star Citizen has always been that all content that can be acquired for the financial support of the game can also be obtained by playing itself.
We will publish eleven instead of four patches this year. We eliminate more mistakes than ever, create more exciting content and work faster than ever to make the Persistent Universe a better experience for everyone. And we made a mistake in this quick approach.
16:00
Star Citizen: Even a small Sunday walk is spectacular here
In the posting, make it clear again that the Flight Blades should also be available from June from Auec. To support the development, items such as this should first be made available for real money via an early access. After “some reflection”, however, it has now been decided to tackle it differently in the future:
We decided that smaller components such as Flight Blades or Bomb Racks should be available at the same time as when appearing in the store. […] For future introductions of gameplay kits, we will make sure that these items are available on the first day in the game.
Not all players are satisfied with this explanation. There is also a lot of skepticism under this posting. Although the Pay2win aspect eliminates this in the short perspective, in the long run the general procedure is not good for the game itself:
- »[…] This is just a temporary fix to calm people. The real problem is that you sell more and more objects in the game that have a greater impact on what a player does every day. Everyone knows that the convenience of the Pledgore would surpass every gameplay in an MMO […]« – SaltEMike
- “It is good that CIG admits that you have crap. And also good that CIG promises that something like this will not be repeated […]. At the same time, however, it is also the case that the player base does not agree that these things are even in the store. You understood half of the point. « – RHADE
- »CIG planned this crap from the start. Flight Blades were the players [auf dem Testserver] withheld from Cig's complete radio silence, only to then appear in the store as soon as the patch went live. They wanted to benefit from Fomo during Invictus and did not change their course. This is not an act of good will, but a non -death and for CIG the business as usual. « – SerraPi
This criticism also comes from a community that is not afraid to support the mammoth project financially. After over a decade in development, Star Citizen has achieved crowd financing of over $ 800 million this year and has thus secured a record.
A financing model that has been questioned and criticized since then, because despite these sums, Star Citizen is still in the early access. Pay2win mechanics certainly don't do that better.
