Entering development all the way back in 2010 before being officially announced a couple years later, Cloud Imperium Games’ massive space-faring MMO Star Citizen has been one of gaming’s most curious stories for years. Development on the title has dragged on for what has felt like an eternity, and though it has been playable in varying stages of alpha for a long time now, with the project continuing to rack up mind-boggling amounts of crowdfunding (currently standing at roughly $670 million), it has continued to look like a game that’s never going to actually release.
Interestingly enough, that will be changing in the near future. Cloud Imperium Games boss Chris Roberts has confirmed in a blog post that Star Citizen is finally approaching its 1.0 launch. Though we still don’t have a date for when it’ll release in full, Roberts says that following the game’s upcoming Alpha 4.0 release, the next target will be 1.0.
“While we recognize that there is no definitive finish line in an online MMO, and that we will always be adding new features and content for many, many years to come, Star Citizen 1.0 is what we consider the features and content set to represent ‘commercial’ release,” Roberts says. “This means that the game is welcoming to new players, stable, and polished with enough gameplay and content to engage players continuously. In other words, it is no longer Alpha or Early Access.”
Similarly, the Wing Commander-inspired standalone single player game Squadron 42 is also now moving from being “feature complete” to becoming “content complete”, with the development team “ensuring the game has the necessary polish and feels worthy of being the spiritual successor to Wing Commander.”
“To this end the team is hard at work, heads down, driving towards the finish line. I am incredibly excited about how the game is shaping up and we will have more to share with you at this year’s CitizenCon, which will be held in Manchester, England,” Roberts says.
Meanwhile, more gameplay features from Squadron 42 will also now be integrated into Star Citizen “at an accelerated rate.” Roberts says, “As part of this, towards the end of last year we decided to re-organize the Star Citizen and Squadron 42 teams to be more integrated, to facilitate bringing several years’ worth of feature work and polish to Star Citizen, and finally set our sail out for Star Citizen’s own finish line.”
Roberts says Cloud Imperium Games has been “busily planning the upcoming major milestones” for Star Citizen. More details on that roadmap will be shared later this year.
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