Home Gaming Surprise! Star Citizen won’t be out this year

Surprise! Star Citizen won’t be out this year

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Star-Citizen1

Star Citizen is making a ton of money still. The ultra popular Kickstarted space sim still has thousands of people throwing money at it every week, and it doesn’t look like the momentum is letting up. But when will the game actually be finished? Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t last year, and it’s not going to be this year either.

Creator Chris Roberts held a speech at a BAFTA event this week, detailing the various parts of Star Citizen that would launch throughout the year. Star Citizen is packaging a first-person shooter mode, single-player campaign, online world and more into one game; but that complete experience will only be ready next year. Updates for backers, which flesh out each of these different pillars of the game, will be released quarterly throughout this year though.

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The most pressing launch is the FPS mode, which is first on the to-do list and set to launch in the next few months. After that a massive update to Arena Commander will go live, updating multiplayer combat and racing, while the Squadron 42 single-player campaign will only arrive near the end of the year. All of these will still be works in progress, leading up to the final commercial launch sometime next year.

Roberts believes the game will have sourced $100 million by then, so don’t forget to keep throwing money at hopeful promises.

“We’re now close to $70 million, and it’s likely the carry-on will probably be over $100 by the time the game is close to public release,” he said.

I’m extremely sceptical about Star Citizen and the amount of hype (and funding) that surrounds the title. I want it to do well, because space sims deserve a good presence in gaming, but I’m struggling to see how all of these new components fit together. It’s become more of a case of “what can we do with all this money” rather than “let’s deliver on our original vision first”. Time will tell.

Last Updated: January 23, 2015

62 Comments

  1. I’m starting to get odd feelings about this. Like it’s going to frazzle either due to hype or something.

    I don’t want it to fail. Not at all but something feels off

    Reply

    • L337J1MB0B

      January 23, 2015 at 17:36

      What I don’t get is how does it cost 70 million to make this thing.. No Man’s Sky which has similar ambitions is being made by a team of like 5 dudes.

      Reply

      • Raptor Rants A Lot

        January 23, 2015 at 17:41

        no mans sky is less action based and not so graphically intense

        Reply

        • L337J1MB0B

          January 23, 2015 at 17:54

          OK yes I agree that Star Citizen has a lot more to it, but I just don’t see a 100 million dollar game in this.

          Reply

          • Raptor Rants A Lot

            January 23, 2015 at 21:27

            Well I don’t know but if you go read up you will see how much time they spend on each space ship, etc. There’s massive dogfights, first person shooter elements, a massive online economy that they want to rival Eve Online, the ability to do anything from escorting to pirating to being a wealthy industrial corporation. I can see how. But I think it’s getting a bit rediculous now

          • Spy Master Tokashi

            January 26, 2015 at 08:21

            GTA 5 cost 250mil to make ^_^

          • DarwinwasWrong

            April 26, 2015 at 15:31

            Maybe you need glasses. Look closer.

      • Ken

        January 23, 2015 at 18:03

        Did you seriously just try and claim that No Man’s Sky and Star Citizen have similar ambitions?
        Lol wow….

        Reply

        • L337J1MB0B

          January 23, 2015 at 19:17

          I’m sorry that Star Citizen has let you down over, and over .. AND OVER.
          LULZ at that janky FPS module demo which they put out.

          Reply

          • Ken

            January 23, 2015 at 21:13

            Hasn’t let me down once. In fact, I’ve been consistently blown away by CIG’s attention to detail and drive to go above and beyond.

          • DarwinwasWrong

            April 26, 2015 at 15:32

            Don’t worry the previous poster was just a troller.

      • Spathi

        January 23, 2015 at 20:19

        Really guy, try and be more ignorant, I dare you…

        Reply

    • Spathi

      January 23, 2015 at 20:35

      I’ve been enjoying Arena Commander for a while now, and all I can say is that it surpassed my expectations. The amount of detail and depth that is already present in the physics and flight model, as well as the loads of small details of each and every ship is really awesome!

      I’m not worried about Squadron 42 at all. I think the single player will be worth it alone. The Persistent Universe, well that is something that we will have to wait and see. It will be good, it will in all likelihood be great, but I’m scared to say it will be the Alpha and Omega of gaming.

      But seeing the work that has gone into the game thus far and the results delivered, I still have hope and believe they will make it happen!

      Reply

    • RustedFaith

      January 24, 2015 at 10:20

      This is nothing new they released the schedule in June last year already. Everyone knew Squadron 42 (Single Player) First episode was coming out the end of the year.

      Reply

    • korval

      January 25, 2015 at 04:34

      It generally “frazzles” because of articles like this, and our reaction to it. You shouldn’t let someone else’s “fears” and “uncertainties” influence you.

      Reply

      • Raptor Rants A Lot

        January 25, 2015 at 12:41

        I’ve had my reservations since late last year. This article hasn’t changed my view. I’ve had reservations because they keep adding stretch goals and can’t decide on a proper date. It’s in development hell with all the cash available. That’s not a good sign. Cut off further stretch goals. Bring it out and then fund additional expansions. This continuous “we are adding more and oh… More and… Well we have more cash so let’s add more and push final release further again” is becoming a worry. What’s stopping them from doing this for years?

        Reply

        • Spathi

          January 26, 2015 at 08:56

          The estimate given above was like that from April last year already (or from what I’ve known).

          Regarding the stretch goals, there really aren’t a lot of stretch goals, more rewards to early backers – Like have a snow globe or a model of a ship to display. They aren’t changing the scope of the game a lot. Also, the development of the Persistent Universe will not stop at the public release, a lot of the extras will only come into play after release, so it won’t necessarily affect development time.

          That being said, end of 2016, when the PU is supposed to be released, is optimistic in my eyes. But I’m happy about it, take your time and make an awesome game I say!

          Reply

  2. Ken

    January 23, 2015 at 17:51

    This information has been out for a year. They should rename this site to “LazyJournalism”.

    Reply

    • Geoff Murphy

      January 23, 2015 at 18:15

      Really?

      Reply

    • Theldos

      January 23, 2015 at 19:03

      It is old information. It has been known for a while. Anyway, it seems by the end of this year, we’ll really see what path Star Citizen will take.

      Reply

  3. Tenaya Masai

    January 23, 2015 at 18:52

    i have a feeling that this game will only launch 2016. all those backers including me were lied to 🙁

    Reply

    • Knowles2

      January 23, 2015 at 19:03

      my money on 2017/18.

      Reply

      • Theldos

        January 23, 2015 at 19:06

        I think he meant 2017. That makes more sense, unless he didn’t actually read the article.

        Reply

        • BottledWater

          January 24, 2015 at 08:45

          I think that CIG are being overly ambitious about the launch date, at least for the PU. I expect them to pull off Chapter 1 of S42, an FPS testbed and maybe AC2.0 this year. That would be a lot of game! I’m unconcerned about the timeline because the playable stuff they’ve been putting out is great – if buggy – and CIG are being very transparent about where they’re spending our money.

          Reply

      • Tenaya Masai

        January 23, 2015 at 20:25

        turns out its scheduled to be released in 2016 anyway.

        Reply

  4. Spathi

    January 23, 2015 at 20:28

    “…but I’m struggling to see how all of these new components fit together. It’s become more of a case of “what can we do with all this money” rather than “let’s deliver on our original vision first”. Time will tell.”

    Le Sigh….it’s almost like you did absolutely no reading on the game before doing the article.

    I actually prefer LG not doing an article about a game or subject than doing a really poor one. Alessandro, the public reads blobs(sic) like this to get information, not hear an uninformed opinion.

    Reply

  5. steampvnc1880

    January 23, 2015 at 22:05

    Ah. A LazyArticle written by LazyJournalists for LazyGamers. Here’s some actual news. Arena Commander, the dogfight testing area that will be in the finished game as a competitive virtual arena, moved from 1.0 to 1.01 today (january 23d) bringing with it bugfixes and tweaks the most significant of which concern missiles which now won’t oneshot you, are easier to avoid and show up on radar. In addition owners of the Aurora LN who have had to put up with a bug that prevents their wingtip weapons from charging or cooling off and thus quickly becoming useless will get a loaner 300i ship until the problem is fixed. Next major patch is 1.1 which will include an in game system of credits acquired by playing that allow you to unlock ships and weapons to use in Arena Commander and ONLY Arena Commander. Earning UEC (actual in game currency) to buy ships to use in the persistent universe is still a ways off.

    Reply

  6. CypherGate

    January 23, 2015 at 23:03

    As awesome as it looks I just dont see this game raking in enough cash to make a profit considering that this genre of game isnt exactly popular. 100 million? I mean…. hell..

    Reply

    • Spathi

      January 23, 2015 at 23:27

      The 100 million refers to crowd funds. They already have 70 million in crowd funds. So technically, the first cent onwards made after the final release will count as profit (not really, but you catch my drift :)).

      Reply

    • Brian Bottoms

      January 26, 2015 at 17:45

      LOL, 70 million in crowd funding, so what makes the genre not popular, I’m off to buy Homeworld Remastered preorder on Steam.

      Reply

  7. Warren Ross

    January 23, 2015 at 23:43

    Space sims have been some of my all-time favourite games, because they let my climb into the cockpit of a fucking STARFIGHTER and go cruising around the universe saving humanity, shipping dodgy cargo and dodging asteroids. I gave absolutely *zero* fucks about whether what I was playing was pushing the limits of PC technology or who happened to be credited as the designer.

    Star Citizen is turning out to be a case study for why you don’t necessarily want a game designer to be in charge of production and programme management, and why I’m not yet convinced that this kind of openly visible piecemeal development process that tries to do be all things to all people – whilst being unable to constrain scope-creep – has not yet resulted in a game that I actually want to play.

    A year ago I sat with my finger hovered over the “pledge” button, seduced by the achingly pretty ship designs and the promise of a new universe to explore, but I’m really quite glad I decided not to part with my money.

    Reply

    • Ken

      January 25, 2015 at 07:07

      “I gave absolutely *zero* fucks about whether what I was playing was pushing the limits of PC technology ”

      Then you’re in the minority.

      “Star Citizen is turning out to be a case study for why you don’t necessarily want a game designer to be in charge of production and programme management”

      No, it’s really not. If anything, it’s a case study on how to create a AAA game and a strong community.

      Reply

    • Spy Master Tokashi

      January 26, 2015 at 08:26

      I am so confused now. People complain that games getting released too early, not enough content, shitty graphics, poor story, you name it. So now CIG are doing the right thing that everyone complained about and now PEOPLE are complaining they are taking too long.

      WTF is wrong with this world…

      Reply

      • Kromas Votes LAG WCMovie Event

        January 26, 2015 at 08:39

        Pretty much the same complaints people had when they were delaying Witcher 3 for a month or so. People seem to jump the fence to the side thats the most vocal it seems. I personally prefer delays to buggy releases. I am however a hypocrite when it comes to ea. I tell people never to buy ea yet I keep on purchasing it. At least I never complain about it being alpha.

        Reply

        • Spy Master Tokashi

          January 26, 2015 at 08:45

          Well, I have to admit, I do not like it when a game get delayed but I do not complain about it because I know it is for the greater good.

          Like Dragon Age: Inquisition, is a great game but I feel it should have been delayed and they should have fix the PC performance issues and the bugs, a good example of a port from the console but not made better to run on the PCs.

          Still enjoying it though

          Reply

  8. BottledWater

    January 24, 2015 at 08:49

    Surprise! Game journalism is still a flipping joke!

    Reply

  9. Joe Black

    January 24, 2015 at 14:18

    Surprise? They have already made money. I just hope they live up to the hype they have generated.

    Reply

  10. voodoochild1975

    January 24, 2015 at 21:28

    Lazy gamers are one thing… lazy journalism just sucks though.

    Author should do their research. Nothing has been pushed back in this release schedule, SQ42 is still on pace for late 2015 release… the new stuff is the FPS in a few months, we didn’t have that firm of a date before this.

    Also, yes, money is coming in and features are being added… but… many of the added features won’t be in at launch and will be incorporated after launch… so as to mitigate scope creep and deliver more or less to original time table.

    There are currently 320 devs working on this project. Believe me, it is progressing nicely. Or don’t believe me actually… far better if the author would look into these things himself… actually do some research.

    I also expect plenty of release dates to slip… but that isn’t Star Citizen… that is the nature of software development.

    I am however seriously getting tired of lazy journalists failing to do even basic research and spouting drivel to puke out an article.

    Have some professional self respect man… do your homework before you write. Lazy journalism can actually be a dangerous thing.

    Reply

  11. Rags

    January 25, 2015 at 22:21

    Too many BS post so soon in the new year. Sorry Lazygamer I am really disappointed. Guess baiting is winning over quality reporting. So this site is no longer for me. Cheers.

    Reply

  12. Mark Treloar

    January 26, 2015 at 07:08

    Crowdfunding

    Reply

  13. Rock789

    January 26, 2015 at 07:57

    They’re really well funded – congrats. But in all honesty, I don’t see this being a profitable enterprise for them (unless they keep some of the investment money). Do they realise how many copies of the game they’d need to sell in order to just break-even with a $100million investment?! And they’re releasing on 1 platform only, which reduces the potential for sales…

    Sounds like a truly epic, awesome, amaze-balls game… And I’d love to play it… IF they can deliver. But, even if they do, are they just gonna rely on crowd funding going forward to fund their games? Or is this a ‘1-of-a-kind’ kinda deal and they wanna make this the best it can be before they retire? Time will tell…

    Reply

    • Exitus Caeli

      May 2, 2015 at 08:12

      They have to sell ZERO games to “break even on the investment”. The investment was donated by backers and doesn’tt require repayment other than a few small pledge physical items.

      The game will start out with zero actual development debt and be fully funded on day one.

      Very few games get this benefit. Take the “$250 million game” for example. They had to make $250 million back just to get to zero. Star Citizen will start with no need to fund any of the past development.

      Reply

  14. Hammersteyn

    January 26, 2015 at 07:59

    So it will make money for another year before the full game launches. Not so sure that this is a good thing. Also why is there FPS in a space sim? Be wary of trying to be a Jack of all trades.

    Also what’s up with all the butthurt? Is it because baby is only getting his bottle 2016? This article was a report about Chris Roberts speech on the 21st. So hows it old news?

    Reply

    • Spathi

      January 26, 2015 at 08:38

      The problem isn’t the release date, it is just the general misinformation contained in the article. The 2016 launch date is nothing new and have been known for almost a year now (from what I know). Sandy didn’t report on the speech, and tried to bait with a headline about info that is well known. That is the problem.

      Regarding the FPS part:

      Star Citizen isn’t just a space ship sim, it is a space sim. There are multi-crew ships in the game that you and your friends can fly together (or you can hire NPCs). There are different stations on the ships that needs to be manned. Lets say for instance that we locate an abandoned ship in space with cargo still in the hold. The pilot is nowhere to be seen, but who cares. We blow up the ship and start loading the cargo with our tractor beam.

      What we didn’t realize is that the pilot of the ship hid in a crate (which survived the explosion because I say so). This crate is now aboard our ship with him still in. We proceed on our merry way…The pilot gets out of the crate and can now play on on our ship. He can kill me and you (FPS) and hijack our ship. He can, from the inside, disable our shields or sabotage our engines, giving his pirate buddies a chance to appear on our radar and attack us. They can launch a small boarding ship and try to board our ship as well. This is where the FPS section comes in. It’s all integrated, not a separate part of the game. Think of it as ARMAs vehicle combat, except the main focus and the largest part of the game focusses on the vehicles and not on FPS combat.

      The FPS part extends to planets as well, but I’m not sure how this will work exactly.

      Anyhow, I suspect a lot more misinformation and negativity regarding the game, as I truly don’t believe that they will reach their targets. But that is game development in general, and people need to take into account that if this game was done through regular means, it would most probably not have been announced at this stage yet.

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        January 26, 2015 at 08:46

        The game sounds impossibly huge and if the can pull it off it will be one of the best games ever. Sandy clearly mentioned Chris Roberts in the article and the speech he gave at BAFTA with a link. So I’m not sure what I’m missing.

        Reply

        • Spathi

          January 26, 2015 at 09:01

          He mentioned it and linked a damn Polygon article. Chris Roberts’ speech and Q&A at the Baftas was just more than 120 min. If I wanted shit reporting, I’d go and read articles on News 24.

          Reply

          • Hammersteyn

            January 26, 2015 at 09:06

          • Spathi

            January 26, 2015 at 09:07

            Hehe, yeah the reason I’m so angry is because I really love LG and expect more from them!

          • Rags

            January 26, 2015 at 09:46

            Dude, I am glad I am not the only one. I really love LG and have been visiting daily for years and have donated to get them out of trouble. But some of their posts this year have either been totally under researched or borderline slander. If they think a case against Colin has hurt them wait till a publishing house steps in for a libel case.

            Personally if I wanted to be trolled by a publication I’d read News24 like you. But I am not a masochist and I expect to be treated to well researched articles. But its clear what direction LG is taking this year. More baiting their supporters with shitty under researched opinion pieces posing as news reports. Its not supposed to be the job of commentators correcting one another, its the job of the journalist to inform.

            Ignoring the tone of the article, as someone who is following CIG I know this information is about a year old. With even a detailed presentation of the roadmap at last years Pax Australia for non investigative press to regurgitate. So its at least a few months old for a primate to copy and paste over at N24.

            If Lazygamer can’t be arsed to do the research then what is the point of me visiting? How can I trust them on stuff I don’t follow? Just by a casual look at the content of the post and the comments here by regulars, misunderstanding of basic some elements of the game shows how LG is failing at their duty and not caring.

          • Spathi

            January 26, 2015 at 10:02

            What is even more frustrating and worrying is the whole snowball effect of the internet can have on the development of a crowd funded game. People accept things stated in a article (any article, not this one specifically) as fact and then spreads the misinformation. People start getting scared and ask for refunds. Everyone jumps on the bandwagon and before you know it, the developer has more pressure than they would have had from any publisher. All while the developer spends loads of time and money to inform the public and backers about the progress regularly.

          • Exitus Caeli

            May 2, 2015 at 08:21

            This started with Eve and other game players over two years ago…”is vaporware”…”will never happen”…”a pipe dream”, etc. and is pretty much the re-vomited view given by players of other games who really have only a casual, passing interest in the project.

            It’s like me panning WoW as a failure doomed to die a screaming death because I don’t play it and have no interest in doing so. Opinions are as common as the people who have them. human nature tends towards negative and once it’s provided people get into a loop with it.

            The game is already far beyond what the long-term “doomsayers” predicted. The only thing that could put a crimp in it is the ability of internet servers to provide the experience.

          • Brian Bottoms

            January 26, 2015 at 17:51

            This guy always writes troll ass, misinformation/old information articles about Star Citizen. He hates and trolls for click bait rage responses from fans and backers, us reading this tripe are probably helping him keep his job.

      • Brady miaau

        January 26, 2015 at 09:40

        Space rangers 2 was also, on paper, quite ambitious like this.

        Reply

        • Spathi

          January 26, 2015 at 09:56

          Well, I can already walk around and damage specific sections of my ship (or someone else’s) after landing it on a asteroid or platform in Arena Commander. So they are already starting to reach their goals. There really is nothing stopping them from making this happen. I can already space walk even, haven’t tried boarding another ship while in flight, but don’t think that will be possible yet.

          Have some faith man!

          Reply

    • Exitus Caeli

      May 2, 2015 at 08:17

      The FPS in the space sim is because more the majority of backers were hoping for more than just seeing out the cockpit of their ships and trading bar cut scenes and HUD displays. There are already some players who plan to play almost exclusively as crew and who want to play the role more as marine and boarding contingents on other player’s ships.

      FPS will be the first big functional “module” after the Arena Combat for ships which has been out some time now.

      The butthurt over 1-1/2 year delays IS pretty laughable. A lot of kiddies who spent their allowances but have no idea how software development works fuel most of that.

      Reply

  15. Axon1988

    January 26, 2015 at 08:09

    And now let the doubt settle in. From the start I have not been convinced. I would also like it to succeed, but there must be a better way of handling this?

    Reply

  16. Lothy

    January 26, 2015 at 08:15

    The problem is to much money is coming in on a regular basis. Why on earth would they want to stop that… The sad thing is they have to much of a good thing goin for them atm. The game will get released the moment the funds start slowing down, until then we will never see the game, just promises and nice screenshots.

    Reply

  17. Spy Master Tokashi

    January 26, 2015 at 08:27

    I am so confused now. People complain that games getting released too early, not enough content, shitty graphics, poor story, you name it. So now CIG are doing the right thing that everyone complained about and now PEOPLE are complaining they are taking too long.

    WTF is wrong with this world…

    game dev companies just cannot do the right thing in the GAMER’s eyes … does not matter what they are trying to do …

    Reply

  18. Blood Emperor Trevor

    January 26, 2015 at 09:03

    Do you know who’re not surprised? The project’s backers who’ve been paying attention to what’s being done with their money & getting regular feedback on progress.

    Reply

  19. CrasH

    January 26, 2015 at 13:51

    No surprise “Stretch Goal” citizen has no release date this year… in fact, i would not even release it next year or the year after that…

    Would ride the gravy train all the way to the bank, because why give what you promised to those who helped the funding at the start, when you can change focus on smaller stuff that all very nice to have but should have been developed after release and not the focus…

    This game will likely not live up to the hype as it will most likely be dated gfx by the time they finally do release…

    Reply

  20. weepeee

    February 25, 2015 at 08:00

    space cotozens sucks dicks???

    Reply

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