The space MMO Star Citizen and its solo campaign Squadron 42 have been in development for over 10 years and are eagerly awaited by fans. All information about the release, roadmap and leaks can be found here on MeinMMO.
Chris Roberts has been working with his developer studio CIG (Cloud Imperium Games) since 2010
on the mammoth project Star Citizen and the associated single-player story Squadron 42.
In the early 1990s, Roberts created a space saga with the Wing Commander series,
which is still fondly remembered by many fans to this day.
20 years later he started to work on his new vision Star Citizen. Over $600 million has now been raised through crowdfunding and the sale of “game packages” that give access to playable modules in alpha status. The resulting production costs seem to never end, but unfortunately neither does the development time required in return.
Here we summarize all the current information for Squadron 42 that we know about the release, roadmap and leaks.
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release date
When is Squadron 42 coming? CIG has been silent on this question for a long time.
Originally announced for 2014, Chris Roberts announced in late 2020 that no more expected release date would be given and no more new game content would be presented.
The last official answer to this comes from early 2022. At that time, Carl Jones, Chief Operating Officer at CIG, was asked by the British games magazine MCV/DEVELOP about the development status of Star Citizen and Squadron 42.
What did the CCO say in the interview? Jones talks about building new teams and the impact Chris Roberts has on local decisions. When asked about a specific publication date, the CCO does not give a concrete answer, but rather an outlook for the next few years.
Among other things, he reports on a planned sequel to the solo player campaign in
Year 2027, but at the same time does not rule out that Squadron 42 could appear earlier.
CIG is keeping a low profile on the current situation in 2023 and is not letting the public participate in the development progress.
road map
In December 2020, Chris Roberts published his annual “Letter from the Chairman”,
to look back and forward to the development of Star Citizen and
Squadron 42 to report.
In the course of this, a new, revised roadmap was released for both development areas. CIG tried to make current goals and milestones more transparent and specific for interested players.
How meaningful is the roadmap? The “Progress Tracker” within the roadmap is explained in more detail via the “Public Roadmap Companion”. Sections of the overall development are listed here on a quarterly basis. But you won’t find any concrete release dates here either. Individual tasks should be completed by the specified times. It doesn’t mean they’re really done with.
When will new updates appear? In addition to the progress tracker, there is another tab in the roadmap. The “Release View” area gives an insight into the upcoming patches for the game client in alpha status and their planned content. This includes gameplay mechanics, new locations and ships, and other modes of transportation. These new features are scheduled to make their way into the game on a quarterly basis. However, CIG does not rule out delayed releases due to longer development times.
leaked
Manufacturers regularly try to close leaks in their own ranks when it comes to confidential content. Sources of information not intended for the public are also considered to be a major problem for the developers.
What was the last leak? Game developers cannot completely avoid unauthorized publication. And so, in October 2022, a 9-minute video showing in-engine recordings appeared.
The leaked material should have been 1 year old at the time it became known.
However, it is still newer than the last video published by CIG itself from the end of 2019.
You can find the video here on YouTube.
Since then, however, no new leaks have appeared and no new content has been published apart from the information in the roadmap.
Does CIG reveal itself?
Squadron 42 has not been available for purchase in the CIG shop for several months.
All game packages and combo packages, in addition to access to the game
also included a starter ship have been quietly removed from the shop.
Why is Squadron 42 no longer available for purchase? According to a CIG employee, Squadron 42 was removed to be brought back to the store at a later date with a price adjustment.
Knebel, a well-known YouTuber and streamer on Star Citizen, has considered this and explained possible reasons for the removal in this video.
Option 1: Upcoming price adjustment
Is it just going to increase the price? Knebel suspects less of a price adjustment as a reason.
In the past, CIG has often adjusted prices in the shop at short notice. If the packages containing Squadron 42 were to be fundamentally revised in terms of content, the developer could have simply communicated this openly.
Option 2: Litigation
Has Chris Roberts been sued? Officially, the game has been removed from the shop for a price adjustment. However, one could suspect that an indictment against CIG is behind it, since the developers have so far offered a product for sale without a specific release date. In order to protect oneself from further lawsuits, the statement with the price adjustment could be used as an excuse.
Option 3: Will there be a release soon with a specific date announced?
Is CIG planning something big? As mentioned several times, Chris Roberts and Co. no longer comment on a release and the exact period for publication. However, one might assume that CIG has removed all Squadron 42 content from the store in order to work behind the scenes to announce a full version. As soon as the complete campaign with all features is playable, the price could be increased accordingly with this justification and the purchase in the shop could be made possible again.
In addition, CitizenCon 2023 awaits us on October 21st and 22nd. This is an annual event that is used by fans to meet personally and exchange ideas with the developers.
CIG acts as organizer and speaks about details and the development status of Star Citizen and Squadron 42.
When is the perfect time for a release? So, with this event in the spotlight, it would be the ideal time to release Squadron 42, or at least give a specific date. This would create a new source of income for further development of the main game, and CIG might finish their overall project faster.
The streamer and YouTuber sees this third possibility as the most likely. Of course, neither he nor we can know whether this case will actually occur.
That was our information about the release, roadmap and leaks for Star Citizen – Squadron 42.
What do you say about the current information situation? Do you regularly check out the playable alpha versions and follow the development yourself or do you think that Star Citizen and Squadron 42 will never be fully released?
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