Star Citizen, a game once described as “a hope wrapped inside a dream buried inside a few layers of controversy”, continues to add more layers of controversy, and yet more funds in its crowdfunding corner, with the total raised now standing at $256,182,593.
Star Citizen began garnering backers all the way back in 2012, when legendary Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts jumped back into the scene and began an initial Kickstarter as the head of Cloud Imperium Games. The multiplayer space trading and combat game was set to be fully launched in 2014, but has since expanded its plans, eventually adding a single-player “spiritual successor” to Wing Commander mode called Squadron 42, with a beta set to be released in mid-2020 and a voice cast that includes Gary Oldman, Mark Hamill and Gillian Anderson.
That is, if it ever happens. An unsettling report from Forbes earlier this year attempted to sum up Star Citizen’s long and complex development process over the last eight years, and broke down the current state of play starkly: that it promised to be a playable universe with 100 star systems, that not one of those has been completed, and that all Roberts and the team had managed so far was “two mostly finished planets, nine moons and an asteroid.”
Yet another new trailer arrived at the back end of last week, giving a more detailed look at just a single piece of the mythical Star Citizen puzzle, the Ares Star Fighter:
And here’s a gameplay demo from last month:
Roberts says work on Star Citizen remains legit. “I know everyone thinks we just have $200 million in the bank and we dive off into it like Scrooge McDuck or something. All I know is when people come to me, I say, ‘Look, you don’t need to spend anything more on this game than $45.’”
That they continue to spend more and more on it is up to them? Make of it all what you will.
Wireframe #28 is out now
