After 12 years and 600 million euros, the release of the MMORPG Star Citizen is said to be “sparkling on the horizon”

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The development of the sci-fi MMORPG Star Citizen is now similar to the Neverending Story. After 12 years and more than 600 million euros in revenue, the boss now announces that an announcement of the release should be within reach.

What’s with the release of Star Citizen? The sci-fi MMORPG and its solo campaign Squadron 42 have been in development for over 10 years and have consumed tons of money during this time.

Star Citizen was announced in September 2012 with a crowdfunding campaign. However, production had already started in 2011. Since then, it has already raised almost 670 million US dollars, the equivalent of around 610 million euros. A large part of this income comes from the sale of virtual ships, for which some players dig deep into their pockets.

Despite all this, the MMORPG is still in alpha. Some gamers are following the development of Star Citizen extremely critically: After so much time and money, the game is still basically just a tech demo and doesn’t offer a real multiplayer or single-player experience.

Some people even doubt whether Star Citizen will ever see a full release.

After a successful test last weekend, Chris Roberts, head of developer Cloud Imperium Games (CIG), now talks about the plans for 2024 in a blog post.

Star Citizen Alpha 3.22 Trailer

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2024 is set to be a big year for Star Citizen

What does the boss say? After Roberts reflects on the past year of 2023, he talks about what 2024 has in store for Star Citizen and Squadron 42.

  • Squadron 42 is scheduled to transition from “Feature Complete” to “Content Complete” in 2024: This corresponds to leaving alpha and moving into beta. In addition, they are working on integrating the features that were developed for Squadron 42 “at an accelerated rate” into the MMO part of the game, the “Persistent Universe”.
  • In addition, Star Citizen itself is scheduled to go into Alpha 4.0 in 2024. This version is said to include the “Server Meshing” technology as well as the “lawless no man’s land” of the “Pyro” system.
  • Before that, there should be Alpha 3.23, which will be launched in April 2024 and will be one of the most extensive updates to date.

    • What about the release now? Roberts goes on to say that Alpha 4.0 is not yet the “final goal” of Star Citizen. Instead, the developer is already talking about a 1.0 release, in Robert’s words: a commercial release that is no longer in alpha or early access.

    There is still no release window for the 1.0 version, but there will be a roadmap later this year that goes into more detail about “The Vision and the Execution Plan”. Currently, “Star Citizen 1.0 is sparkling on the horizon,” says Roberts.

    “In a marathon, they say, the last mile is the most difficult, but to quote the Roman ruler Marcus Aurelius, ‘What we do now echoes throughout eternity,'” it continues.

    The roadmap mentioned was leaked at the beginning of the year. You can find out what was inside from your colleagues at GameStar.

    What else is new? The post also talks about a restructuring within CIG, which also includes a controversial plan to relocate the “Star Citizen” team in Los Angeles to other regions, particularly Manchester, England, Austin, Texas and Montreal, Canada.

    One employee saw this as a disguised mass layoff because it was difficult for many employees to leave the state or even the country with little or no notice.

    The reorganization also saw the departure of Todd Papy as director of Persistent Universe Live, who worked on Star Citizen for 9 years. Rich Tyrer will now serve as Senior Game Director alongside Roberts, overseeing the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42.

    Announcements are received with skepticism

    How is this discussed? On the gaming subreddit, a thread about the announcements has already reached over 1,200 comments in 21 hours. Many react there with admiration: The release is probably only a few years away and you only need a few million to perfect the facial features and a flatulence system, they say.

    Reddit user “Warcrimes_Desu” sums up Star Citizen’s entire dilemma: The game is an incomplete and bug-ridden mess, but there is absolutely nothing else like it. No other game allows for such seamless space piracy.

    Other users see this much more cynically:

  • jetude19 writes: “I assembled my computer for this game. I’ve now built 3 more computers and it’s still not out.”
  • Sirus_Griffing: “Alpha Centauri is also a sparkle. Maybe we’ll get there before [Star Citizen] actually appears.”

    • Some users even point out that Elon Musk has already launched actual rockets with his SpaceX program for less money than Star Citizen has consumed so far. A rocket launch is currently said to cost around $100 million – almost 1/6 of Star Citizen’s revenue (via as).

    At the moment, many gamers seem to be rather skeptical as to whether they will see an actual release of Star Citizen. Nevertheless, it becomes clear again and again that many people are very enthusiastic about the idea of ​​MMORPGs. Now CIG just has to deliver.

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