After 13 years and a shocking $800 million in backers’ funds, Star Citizen, probably the most bold house sim of all time, continues to languish in early entry.
The brainchild of Chris Roberts — finest generally known as the creator of the seminal Wing Commander collection — Star Citizen was created to broaden on concepts that did not discover their means into Freelancer, one other challenge Roberts was engaged on earlier than the developer was acquired by Microsoft, and he departed. Launched in 2003, Freelancer targeted on an open house sandbox that allowed gamers to carve out a residing buying and selling, mining, or searching bounties throughout 48 star programs. Whereas it was launched as a single-player sport, Roberts initially deliberate to observe it up with a extra bold on-line model.
“My unique imaginative and prescient for Freelancer was to first launch a single participant sport after which observe it up with a massively multiplayer model with a dynamic financial system and a world that reacted and tailored to the participant’s actions,” Roberts stated in a blog post. “I did not get an opportunity to ship this imaginative and prescient and finally whereas Freelancer was an excellent sport, it fell in need of what I used to be aiming for.”
Nearly a decade later, Star Citizen grew to become the automobile for Roberts to execute on his unique imaginative and prescient for Freelancer. Within the intervening 13 years, the sport has been stricken by durations of radio silence from the builders, reduce options, and damaged guarantees, whereas additionally delivering a string of bold updates and universe-expanding (if generally half-baked) new content material. If Star Citizen ever delivers on its promise, it can undoubtedly be one of many best space games of all time… however can it ever fulfill its lofty ambitions?
A tumultuous historical past
After a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2012 that raised over $2.1 million, developer Cloud Imperium Video games (CIG) began releasing Star Citizen modules to offer gamers a style of the gameplay and options. The primary of those was the hanger module, which allowed gamers to stroll round exterior the ships they’d earned by pledging to the Kickstarter. CIG introduced they deliberate to launch a feature-complete model of the sport in November of 2014 (spoiler alert: they didn’t).
2014 did see the discharge of the Area Commander mode, which gave gamers their first actual style of sitting behind the sticks of Star Citizen’s ever-growing roster of ships. The module allowed backers to scoot round in races or tackle different gamers or AI ships in fight, and provided a restricted handful of sport modes to whet gamers’ palates.
The next 12 months, CIG dropped the primary iteration of the Persistent Universe module, which mixed earlier updates and have become the core of the early entry launch. It modeled a part of one of many sport’s megacities and gave gamers an concept of what the ultimate model of the sport could appear like. Ultimately, it will broaden to mix in-ship and on-foot experiences and permit for expanded interactions between gamers. The Persistent Universe grew to become the main target of improvement and was the bedrock of the sport’s evolution.
On the identical time, CIG introduced they’d contracted a third-party studio, Illfonic, to construct a first-person shooter module that may ultimately mix seamlessly with Star Citizen’s core gameplay. Referred to as Star Marine, the challenge was stricken by improvement points and delays, and ultimately, the contract with Illfonic was cancelled, and improvement was moved in-house. Initially deliberate as a 2015 launch, Star Marine did not see the sunshine of day till December of the next 12 months, and launched with out most of the initially promised options.
Updates adopted at a staccato tempo. 2017 noticed the addition of explorable planetary surfaces for the primary time, with character customization, mining, and the primary totally modeled planet and metropolis the following 12 months. Subsequent variations have added extra planets, a fame system, loot, and a number of different programs and options. However all through its improvement, the sport has been haunted by the looming spectre of Squadron 42, a single-player element initially pitched as a tutorial that has spiraled into the realm of characteristic bloat.
The Squadron 42 Quagmire
The preliminary idea behind Squadron 42 was a tutorial phase that may gently introduce gamers to the sport’s mechanics and feed them some in-game rewards upon completion. It has since morphed right into a full-blown, standalone sport set within the Star Citizen universe, promising an entire single-player marketing campaign full with a solid of high-profile actors, together with Gary Oldman, Henry Cavill, Gillian Anderson, and plenty of others. Like the principle sport, Squadron 42 guarantees to mix in-ship exploration and fight with FPS and different parts.
Squadron 42 was initially slated for 2014, then bumped to 2016, earlier than being delayed indefinitely. Growth is being dealt with by a studio referred to as Foundry 42 beneath the supervision of Chris Roberts’ brother, Erin, and particulars have continued to drip out within the intervening years. The crew has launched various teaser movies, in addition to a one-hour “vertical slice” of the sport from 2017 that confirmed off some exploration, FPS gunplay, and an extravehicular exercise (EVA) sequence the place the participant examines the wreck of a spaceship.
In 2020, CIG launched a collection on its YouTube web page referred to as “The Briefing Room” which was set to discover numerous points of Squadron 42. It was discontinued after airing a single episode.
The identical 12 months, whereas revealing a progress tracker and roadmap for each the principle sport and Squadron 42, Chris Roberts stated “Squadron 42 will probably be accomplished when it’s accomplished, and won’t be launched simply to make a date, however as a substitute solely when all of the expertise and content material is completed, the sport is polished, and it performs nice. I’m not prepared to compromise the event of a sport I imagine in with all my coronary heart and soul.”
At CitizenCon 2023, the annual Star Citizen fan conference, CIG introduced that Squadron 42 was characteristic full. Whereas various followers and media shops assumed this meant that launch was imminent, a full 12 months later (at CitizenCon 2024), the corporate introduced that Squadron 42 wouldn’t release until some time in 2026.
The state of Star Citizen in 2025
Remarkably, Star Citizen manages to really feel precisely like what it’s: a sport that is been in improvement for 13 years and a sport that is nonetheless in alpha.
It is extremely bold and in some ways, a exceptional feat. The depth of a few of its programs is beautiful; for instance, in case your character is wounded throughout fight, you could develop into injured and require medical consideration. As an alternative of a single well being bar, every of your physique elements has its personal pool of hit factors. Accidents to your legs could trigger you to limp. Arm accidents could lower melee injury or improve weapon sway. To heal accidents, your character might want to spend time in an appropriately geared up facility like a hospital, and there is a full medical profession accessible for gamers who need to chase their Gray’s Anatomy desires in house.
This is only one instance of the massive gameplay selection on supply within the present model of Star Citizen. The legacy of Freelancer’s programs is most evident within the profession paths accessible. Gamers can select to be miners and extract beneficial supplies from asteroids in house, planetside in specially-designed mining autos, or on foot with a handheld mining laser.
Or you could resolve to stay the lifetime of a dealer, delivering commodities the place they’re most wanted (or desired), or an outlaw, haunting the fringes of society. You too can mix profession paths by, for example, mining sources after which promoting them alongside a worthwhile commerce route, or making your mark buying and selling contraband.
There’s additionally bounty searching, salvage, racing, and various different careers, most of that are buoyed by supporting missions and programs that make them totally viable for tens of hours of gameplay. The primary-person gameplay has additionally made a number of leaps each in sophistication and polish, and enhancements to gunplay, loot, and physics have made it almost as compelling because the house parts. A bunch of floor autos can be accessible, starting from gravbikes and hovercycles to powered exosuits that appear like development mechs.
With all that stated, the sport’s pre-release state can be very evident at occasions. Bugs are ubiquitous and vary from amusing to annoying to downright game-breaking. Gamers repeatedly encounter log-in points, infinite masses, and stock points. Unsurprisingly, for a sport that is replete with a sprawling variety of programs and objects continuously interacting with one another, there are quite a few points, and patches typically introduce as many issues as they appropriate, particularly when new options are launched.
There have additionally been various troubling experiences concerning the state of the sport’s improvement and the well being of its developer, Cloud Imperium Video games. An Insider Gaming report from October of final 12 months revealed a studio in disaster: pushing its workers to crunch, shedding greater than 100 of its workers, and freezing wage will increase. Financial data from 2022 confirmed that the corporate had burned by greater than $637 million over the course of improvement, at a fee averaging $106 million a 12 months between 2020 and 2022.
The report additionally detailed various improvement points, together with workers referring to the present engine as a Frankenstein of mismatched items that is onerous to work with at finest. It additionally signifies points with Roberts’ administration fashion, the place he could introduce huge adjustments every day that end in weeks of chaos because the studio tries to catch up.
To some extent, Roberts appears to be aware of those points, a minimum of when it comes to playability. In a Letter from the Chairman printed in December of final 12 months, he stated the main target for 2025 could be squashing bugs and making the sport extra reliably playable.
“Our drive for playability surrounds three vital areas – efficiency, stability, and content material,” Roberts stated. “The sentiment a lot of you’ve got shared—and one we wholeheartedly agree with—is that if the present sport, because it stands right now, ran easily with fewer obstacles and bugs, it will present an unparalleled expertise.”
Roberts has additionally indicated that server meshing — a characteristic launched in an replace on the finish of final 12 months that permits a number of impartial sport servers to attach and work collectively seamlessly as in the event that they have been a single bigger server — was one of many final boundaries to a full launch.
That stated, we have been damage earlier than. It is undoubtedly an essential step ahead on the tech facet, however after 13 years of ready, I will not be holding my breath for an imminent model 1.0. Whereas doable, the chances that Star Citizen will launch earlier than Squadron 42, presently slated for 2026, appear infinitesimal at finest.