It seems like most of the time anything of note happens with regards to Star Citizen, it’s concerning a delay. Squadron 42, the wildly ambitious Space Sim’s single-player campaign, was meant to see some form of limited release before the end of the year. But that’s just not going to happen, with CIG confirming the long suspected delay during a livestream via Citizencon yesterday.
CIG CEO Chris Roberts made the announcement on the stream, citing various technical factors that have prevented the team from achieving their goal of releasing the campaign by the end of the year. According to Roberts, the team is still working on finishing a single chapter (of a full 28) to the quality standard that is expected in the final game. Once that’s done, the chapter will be shown off to the community, which might happen next year.
As for the rest of Squadron 42, Roberts update fans on the progress and approach CIG is taking. Roberts stated that most of the game’s core functionality was complete, but that the team is still working of various subsystems required to make even more chapter functional. That includes Pathfinding, Missions System Integration and Animation implementation – which sound like pretty major core features if you ask me.
Still it’s an update, and one that I’m sure no one is surprised by. Considering we’re well into October, it was pointless to hope for CIG to deliver on the promised 2016 date. But what is stranger still is that Roberts and his team are still focusing on a single chapter for showcase, which makes me wonder just how long the other 27 might take. And as much as Roberts likes to make it sound like it’s easy once the framework is compete, that’s often not the case at all.
Kotaku UK recently dived deep into the troubled development of Star Citizen, and their features are well worth a read if developments like this make you wonder just what is going on at CIG.
Last Updated: October 10, 2016
Galbedir
October 10, 2016 at 10:35
What!? I am in shock! I did not see this coming a mile away…honestly…so suprised! wow…
Admiral Chief
October 10, 2016 at 10:43
As Hammersteyn said a while ago in a comment that won him comment of the week
(not actual words)
“So my grandkids will still not be able to play this?”
Hammersteyn_hates_Raid0
October 10, 2016 at 10:57
XD
NickW
October 10, 2016 at 10:51
Shame that it’s delayed, but no great shock. As they said in the presentation, they want to release it on their own terms, when it looks its best, and not on a publishers timetable. I’m really enjoying Alpha 2.5, looks great on a Nvidia 970.
If you’d want to sign up, use the below link and code to get some freebies 🙂
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/enlist?referral=STAR-VK4V-QSYM
frikkenator
October 10, 2016 at 14:25
You say that as if it’s a good thing. We’d still be waiting for Freelancer 13 years later had a publisher not taken over from Chris Roberts.
Grimsupanoob
October 10, 2016 at 10:55
Turning into Vaporware?
HairyEwok
October 10, 2016 at 10:56
A delay means more time and money need to be invested to complete it…. Time they have plenty of, but the money part, eish I wonder how much they have left in that criteria.
Knowles222
October 10, 2016 at 11:10
A lot of people are wondering how much is left in the pot.
Hammersteyn_hates_Raid0
October 10, 2016 at 10:57
https://media.giphy.com/media/74Ub8Zkxi9eDu/giphy.gif
Admiral Chief
October 10, 2016 at 11:45
Looks like a MUSKET BALL
Original Heretic
October 10, 2016 at 11:01
Well, on the bright side, it might be ready for the PS5.
konfab
October 10, 2016 at 11:05
I think star citizen is at the point now where it would have been cheaper to develop actual spaceships.
Hammersteyn_hates_Raid0
October 10, 2016 at 11:05
hahaha
BakedBagel
October 10, 2016 at 11:07
I was hating on this last week.
Did some digging, the stuff that IS released looks sexy.as.f**k.
I hope, i really do hope, that SC will be everything they say it is.
Knowles222
October 10, 2016 at 11:09
This is getting embarrassing, this game was suppose to be release last year, now they are saying we might get a single mission sometime next year.
What is even more funny is that they were willing to show off a demo of their procedural tech but not a demo of a WIP build of SQ42.
Ghost In The Rift
October 10, 2016 at 11:10
Well on the bright side COD:Infinite should scratch that itch a little bit, right Jon Snow?
BacchusZA
October 10, 2016 at 11:25
Disappointing and unfortunate, but hardly surprising, no.
It’ll be pretty interesting to see how SC & Elite Dangerous compare, feature wise, when SC eventually does release, because at this rate it’s looking like they’ll probably be fairly similar at that time. David Braben may well have been onto a very smart idea with releasing a basic game to start with, and then adding major features on as they’re completed.
Archdruid Kromas
October 10, 2016 at 11:37
Meh. Knew it was going to happen. Also don’t hate on this game alone. This is standard practice for independant games these days. DayZ,ARK,7DaystoDie and tonnes more games have missed their release dates by more than a year so yeah …. blame kickstarter/early access.
Edit actually you can hate ARK but for differeentr reasons.
HairyEwok
October 10, 2016 at 12:01
Oh believe me I’m totally hating on ARK for that move they pulled selling DLC before the base game is optimized and released.
Archdruid Kromas
October 10, 2016 at 13:30
That is how it should be.
Spy Master Tokashi
October 10, 2016 at 11:52
This news is so shocking …. same as the news I got that a fat kid had another ice cream and stuffed it in his face.
Frik van der Hewerskink
October 10, 2016 at 13:04
To all the people that are saying Star Citizen is not a pyramid scheme, Suuuuuuuuuuure buddy
Sageville
October 10, 2016 at 13:16
Backers be like: “At least my children will get to play it….”