Will cities mostly be fillers with views to fly past? Will players be able to freely explore or be restricted to certain areas? If they are restricted, will those restrictions be lifted in the future?

The original idea for Arc Corp, was having three areas and slowly expand over time, but to a limit. Having entire cities be accessible comes with a problem that things become repetitive. Once you've seen a gunstore and a clothing shop, you'll see another one down the road with a slight variation or name. So rather than having a huge repetitive city, you'll have a condensed, but very unique area for each system. Levski is wildly different than Arc Corp so that creates a unique experience from visual alone, then there's how NPCs interact, the clothing, missions, prices.