Cits and Civs, Captains and Commanders, you’re tuned to episode 540 of Guard Frequency — the best damn space game podcast ever! This episode was recorded on Friday, February 20 and released for streaming and download on Tuesday, February 24, 2026 at GuardFrequency.com
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This Week’s Schedule
- Flight Deck
- Elite: Dangerous
- Star Citizen
- Voyager: Across the Unknown
- Helldivers 2
- Guard Frequency Exiles, where the crew will do anything for just a taste of the celebrity lifestyle
- Feedback Loop
Links & The Like
Elite: Dangerous
Elite Dangerous announced the Kestrel Mark 2 and she’s a beauty. The power of a medium fighter crammed into the frame of a small fighter, wearing a coat that combines a Marvel Avengers Quinjet with an F-23 Black Widow. You heard me. But we have to ask the question: has the sweet sweet ship money finally gone to FDev’s head? Is there any reason to buy or fly any of the older ships now that the new hotnesses are out there? Also, there may be another renaissance for space story authors on the horizon.
Star Citizen
Star Citizen released Early Access Pre-Alpha Release Candidate Prototype Experimental Test Build 4.6.0 11244073 to the LIVE server… last week. There’s not even a hotfix listed. The game must be ready for release! This week there was some news about server performance, and that news is not really news. It turns out that when there are more than 40 players on a server, the server performance goes way down. When you have fewer than 10 players on a server, the performance is great. It’s a breakthrough for science.
Helldivers 2
Helldivers 2 has once again placed the fate of the Galactic War in players’ hands. By which we mean it’s all their fault for losing Cyberstan to the Cyborgs. As Arrowhead Games delivers the narrative punishment we richly deserve, Game Director Mikeal Erikkson sat down with PC Gamer to talk about the direction of the game and what we can expect – in broad strokes. And, because Henry was gone last week, we thought we’d let him pick a new game to talk about.
Community Questions
- Does a game need new features to bring back old players? Does repackaging existing gameplay count as a new feature?
- Has FDev painted themselves into a corner with the Kestrel Mark 2? Does every new ship have to be the best ship in that category from now on?
Patreon Backing
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Join Us In Game!
- Click here to go to our Star Citizen Organization page and apply today!
- Check out the callsigns we use personally in each game
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