While developer Cloud Imperium Games has been working on Star Citizen for quite some time now, creator Chris Roberts has revealed in an interview that the game might launch in either 2027 or 2028. Speaking to Canadian publication LaPresse, Roberts also noted that spin-off game Squadron 42 is slated for release earlier – some time in 2026.
For the sake of context, development on Star Citizen had begun over a decade ago, with the game having gone through several rounds of crowd funding to further help its development. Since development started, the studio has continued to release early builds of the title for some time, with 2017 marking the release of the game’s persistent universe module.
Roberts had spoken earlier this year about plans for Star Citizen in a Letters From the Chairman from back in January. In the letter, Roberts wrote about wanting to focus on getting Star Citizen to a state that can be referred to as playable. As part of the this, the studio has decided to run two versions of the games in parallel, each one having its own progression.
A big release for Star Citizen this year was Alpha 4.0. At the time, Roberts had noted that it wasn’t a hundred percent complete, and that the studio was also focusing on bringing in some of the mission types that were missing. For context, the title is currently in Alpha 4.3.0. Players that would prefer to access the missing missions and other content can switch to an older Alpha branch of the title.
One of the key features of Alpha 4.0 for Star Citizen is the ability for players to travel back and forth between the Stanton System and the Pyro System through a Jump Point. To make this journey possible, players will end up jumping through the various server layers that power the entirety of the game.
“Each planet, landing zone, or major station is now covered by different game servers,” wrote Roberts. “Thanks to this technology, server boundaries are effectively invisible, even at our high levels of fidelity, ensuring smooth, uninterrupted gameplay. This means that server performance, playability, and overall health are now local to each of the nodes in the server mesh.”
As for single-player title Squadron 42, the game was described by Cloud Imperium Games as being feature complete all the way back in 2023. Since then, however, the studio has continued to work on the game without revealing more details. At the time, senior game director Richard Tyrer said that Squadron 42 had entered into the final stage of game development, revolving around stability improvements and optimisations to ensure that the game runs well.
October 2024 also saw a major trailer released for Squadron 42, giving us a look at more than an hour of gameplay from the upcoming shooter. The game will feature quite a star-studded cast, including Mark Hamill, Henry Cavill, Gary Oldman, Andy Serkis, and Gillion Anderson among others.
For more details about Squadron 42, here are 15 things you should know about it.