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Update: Despite many publications (ourselves included) publishing yesterday that the single player component of Star Citizen, Squadron 42, has been delayed, developer Cloud Imperium has denied these claims. While it wouldn't be drawn on when the campaign would be unveiled, it did say that no delay had been stated by any member of the team.
The original comment that was claimed to come straight from company founder Chris Roberts himself (via GameStar), turned out to come from the interviewer. A mis-translation of the German claimed Roberts said there was a delay, whereas apparently, the more accurate interpretation was that the interviewer simple claimed Roberts said this, rather than recording the quote directly.
This was backed up by Cloud Imperium when PC Gamer got in touch:
“It appears something may have been lost in the translation,” a spokesperson said. “Chris spoke to multiple reporters at Gamescom who asked about the status of Squadron 42. We have been feature locked for a while and things are coming along nicely. In every case he told them that we are hard at work on the game and are focused on making it great but no official launch dates were discussed.”
No more details on release date were announced, but we were told that more information would be coming in October, so we may need to wait and see how far things are along.
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Original Story: Star Citizen is a monster project, backed by more than $120 million (£90 million) of fans' crowd funds and an extremely ambitious feature set. Perhaps that's why more than two years late from its original projected release, the release of the single player campaign, known as Squadron 42, has been pushed back until next year.
When Star Citizen was pitched on Kickstarter back in 2012, it hoped to have the game finished and released by the end of 2014, despite promising a lot. However it quickly became clear that wouldn't be a date that could be honoured, as more money and features rolled in to the development pipeline.
Unfortunately for those still waiting on the full game, that's something that's happened time and again in the past few years and now it looks to have happened again, with project lead Chris Roberts, stating in a chat with GameStar (via Kotaku), that he doesn't think the single player portion will be ready until at least 2017.
Although this is a pretty official line to the core of Cloud Imperium Games, the actual official release date is still slated as 2016, so it's not clear if the developer is still trying to make that date and some inside don't feel that it can be achieved, or whether someone just hasn't updated the site yet. [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8YkjRs-S8w']
We'll have to wait and see, but even as mammoth as Star Citizen is, with a lot of features that gamers are excited about, if they never get to actually play the finished article, it will certainly lose some of its lustre.
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KitGuru Says: How much money have you guys put into Star Citizen? For me, fortunately it came along around the time I swore off Kickstarters since I tended to forget I'd even backed them. I'd probably be smarting if it'd put much into this and it wasn't going to be ready until nearly five years after the campaign began.
Delays are standard with this game because it is pushing some many boundaries. Most backers are happy to wait as they do show what they are doing and release small bits of the game to play (thus showing they are doing something) and we want this game to be good rather than enough rushed job like NMS.
Also 5 years isn’t long. Any AAA game breaking boundaries takes that length to develop so if they made SQ42 earlier then that would be a hell of an achievement.
How much did you back it? I got both SQ42 and access to the PU for like $45, but then I saw my org mates have paid quite a lot more. I recently got an Argo and also a poster. So i am with $98 in and I feel like going further upgrading my 2 current ships to something good when patch 3.0 comes end of 2016.
Chris Roberts is the next “Steve Jobs”, but in the gaming industry. We back you up Chris, just release the game of our dreams with the best you’ve got.
Guys remember that they are not working only on the SQ42, but also on the Persistent Universe. It is not an easy work, knowing that the best of the best engineers are with them – the guys who made Crysis games. This will be another break through and milestone in the gaming history.
Way to set yourself up for a massive disappointment.
$1,246.20 USD for me since Oct 2012. Will be done when it’s done – happy to wait for the game of my dreams. By the way, that five years includes setting four studios up from scratch!
Got a starter ship with alpha access for $25. There’s really no point dropping any more money into the game when everything’s obtainable via grind
Pretty much. It’s mindsets like this that killed off No Mans Sky :L
There is some confusion based on the original report wether or not he was talking about star citizen or squadron 42. Most backers are expecting q1 2017 rather than q4 2016 anyway, but it does sound like there was a slight confusion between the two game components in the interview.
Virtually no AAA game takes five years of development anymore. That´s just not viable, and in fact not necessary because there is a clear project and there are publisher deadlines. One of the major problems here is that the start of the project was so massively different from what the project is now; it has been changing incrementally and quite radically.
It’s starting to remind me of DNF. Not in a it’s gonna disappoint massively way or never get released way, but a development team that wants to make everything perfect and takes ever opportunity to redo finished work because they can make it better.
As with any creative project, you have to know when enough is enough, or you’ll never finish. It’s not there yet; games like Grim Dawn also took years longer because the developer just didn’t know when to quit, and I love the end product. But it could get there at some point.
feeling far more like Peter Molyneux.
Name me the games that start from scratch (including no studio) and then make a AAA game in a few years? Oh wait, you can’t because none do. The only “AAA” games that take a few years to make are the CoD reskins.
As for deadlines, how many games come out nowadays missing content or bugged to hell? I would rather have sliding deadlines rather than total turd. Also the game has already demo’ed and given people tech which has never been achieved by any other dev which is pretty good.
I’ve put in about the same. I know some people verging on $1000 but I have many other things I would spend my money on first.
I think when 3.0 comes out (probably Feb 2017), then that will be a good indicator as to the overall quality and when the game will be finished.
Blatant lies by the developer about content and features that simply weren’t in the game are what killed No Man’s Sky.
Given that SC is an open development project where north of a million and a half people have access to play-test the WIP Alpha is an entirely different animal than the fiasco that was/is No Man’s Sky.
Please stop comparing apples to oranges.
Just to be clear, are you suggesting that AAA games (not sequels, but new IPs) take less than 5 years to develop?
I call shenanigans, but please feel free to link any project that actually fits that description.
Focusing on a few IPs that were marketed as AAA:
Dishonored. Started in 2009, launched in 2012. About 3.5 years of development. Dying Light supposedly started in 2012 and was launched in 2015. So also about 3 years. Destiny, started in 2010, launched in 2014.
How broad do you want to consider IP? For example, Shadow of Mordor, started late 2011 and launched in 2014. I’d consider it a new IP, but developing a brand new universe obviously also takes time. It’d be weird to treat games like GTAV or BioShock Infinite as sequels, not in the least because they took 5 years to develop.
Obviously, all based in Wikipedia and its sources 🙂
So yeah, AAA games can and frequently do take less than five years. And as I suggested, this is probably due to deadlines. A game like GTAV can take so long, because it’s RockStar, and nobody is going to tell them what to do. Publishers like Activision are probably a bit more aggressive with their developers.
I can’t because I can’t read minds. How the hell am I supposed to know when some guy at some studio, or not at some studio, had an idea that later turned into a AAA game? Likely not even the developers themselves know what triggered their ideas to develop games.
Based on official records, I’ve name games. And look into it for fun, for most AAA five years seems to be a limit. Whether that is true, only God knows.
Fair enough, I’ll admit when my assumptions are wrong, though I do
question the accuracy of the Destiny development timeline as I’ve heard
that project dates back much farther than 2010.
The point that I hold to is that 5+ years development for a new IP, particularly one
wherein the developer isn’t simply re-hashing game-play that has been
done over and over using existing game engines, isn’t uncommon nor is it
‘too long’.
watchdogs 5 years, the order 1886 5 years, driveclub about 5 years, UC4 is about 5 years to and theres plenty more like that
Yeah, it seems virtually was somewhat overstated as well. It seems about the limit for soms strange reason though. All AAA games I looked into were roughly five years or less. Even massive games like GTA V. Maybe selection bias, but made me wonder why.
it’s done when it’s ready , better than rushing it and coming up like another certain game without many features… cough …no mans sky ..cough
Got a Mustang Omega Racer R9 with my Sapphire R9 290X Vapor X as part of the AMD never settle offer back in 2014. Consider it a win on 2 fronts graphics card is still as powerful as the cards AMD is putting out today and the Mustang has been great. It’s had a few patches of rust that I’ve repaired but I’ve done regular 6 monthly oil and air filter changes and replaced the front brake pads and she runs like the day I got her. On a more serious note I have just gotten back into Elite Dangerous so I’m happy waiting for Star Citizen, they can take all the time they need AS LONG AS THEY GET IT RIGHT.
You’re probably correct in the assessment that it is deadlines related.
I get that aspect of the investment that a publisher has to put into getting a game developed, but unfortunately it is also a huge limiting factor as it ultimately necessitates that technologies which take too long to bear fruit must be abandoned.
While I wouldn’t suggest that some things should be allowed to continue to take up development time/money for excessive amounts of time – if they are pipe dreams – I have to imagine it is a less than clear-cut distinction.
SC has the potential to provide gamers with a drastically different approach to developing the content we, the consumer, are willing to pay for.
Many of the publisher driven hype-trains over the past few years have made me somewhat jaded to that aspect of the business as it usually involves over-promising/under-delivering followed by promises to fix the game mixed with ploys to sell features that were missing from the initial release as ‘expansions’
is it me or does it have a certain half life feel to it… :O
SC has an insane budget of course, although games like Grim Dawn work as well with a much smaller budget. The question is whether consumers are willing to take the risks. I’ve spent money on a lot of crowd funding projects and I’ve learned that development takes years longer than planned and the results frequently disappoint. A big publisher like EA can deal with that because through marketing they’ll sell anyway and if not they have safe bets like FIFA. But gamers will be a lot more hesitant the next time.
In the end consumers aren’t investors, and so I’m not confident that crowd funding is going to have the lasting impact we hoped a few years ago.
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Read minds? how about you just become informed on the subject?! Oh wait, this is the internet and ignorance passes as opinion *facepalm*
Considering that this game had to make the numerous studios and then make a new game, 5 years is fine. Just have a look at this:
http://i59.tinypic.com/2m7w6bq.jpg
I’m not going to repeat myself, see the other thread if you are interested in what I have to say.
Yet you still posted >.> You ignore the fact that this studio had to be founded and if you have ever worked in a proper business environment you would know that setting up a company and hiring takes a vast amount of time, but then I guess Costa is different *jk*
I’d also factor in that they’re making 2 games – both the single player and the mmo side of things (SQ42 / SC).
Take GTA V (as it’s as close a comparison as I can think of, having both large single and multiplayer sides). Its development supposedly began immediately following the release of gta IV in april ’08, but wasn’t released until sept ’13. That’s a 5+ year dev cycle on a game with both a large single player and multiplayer, but still relatively small compared to the ambitions of what they want to do in SC’s mmo side.
Also consider that it was 5 years with an established dev team, building upon an in-house designed engine (rockstar advanced game engine, RAGE for short) that they were already familiar with, whereas SC began as 6 guys on a kickstarter using CryEngine3 that they’d never worked with. They had to build a studio (or 4 in CIG’s case, 2 in the US, 1 in the UK, 1 in Germany), hire staff, learn and heavily modify the engine. Heck they didn’t have but 1 office in California when they started out that wouldn’t fit much more than a dozen people. They’re still in the process of building the German office in Frankfurt.
Put into perspective, 5 years for both projects (single player and multiplayer) seems ludicrously ambitious.
While I certainly agree that crowd funding in its own right is a dice game, the combination of the constant communication/open development with crowd funding/no publisher is what makes SC both unique and promising.
With Cloud Imperium’s strategy, the inherent risks typically associated with crowd funding projects are mitigated to a much higher degree than SC’s failed or disappointing counterparts.
Involving your backers and, ultimately, the whole world in the development process and, more importantly, the testing aspect not only shows meaningful progress but also (as we’ve seen) provides invaluable insight into what the gaming audience wants. This, in turn, has allowed CIG to change and adapt not only the scope but the many facets of the basic game-play long before anything was ‘set in stone’.
I haven’t and wouldn’t just throw my money after any crowd funded project, but I’d be far more likely to support a project that A: had subject matter I cared about and B: followed SC’s example.
Chris is far better than SJ IMO. 🙂
That said, I’m not too thrilled about the Intel sponsorship, at least we got an AMD sponsored ship for balance. 😉
I actually like the way development is going and if it takes another couple of years to be “right” (and by then graphics hardware and software will be better able to display it) that’s fine.
At least you can “play and preview” the progress in the meantime.
I’ve worked at Mc Donald’s actually 😛 So close.
Democratization of the development process in short. I wonder what it’ll bring in the future (hopefully not Trump-like games :D).
Of a sort, sure but it isn’t as though every aspect of the game has gone through the filter of ‘what do the masses say with their vote’.
The primary vision of the game has remained – the scope of that vision has certainly increased from the original kickstarter but it isn’t as though SC was going to be one kind of game but then evolved into something else entirely based on feedback from the community. More like refinements of the specific details that make up the vision of the game, and not every aspect either – Chris (and co) have stuck to their guns on several items they have shown are important to what CIG wants the game to be.
Generally speaking, a full-on mob-mentality, games-by-democracy project would likely be a disaster every time.
awww the update has taken the wind out of the trolls sails boohoo hahaha
Just like real democracy 😛
The big thing that really shocks me is when Chris presents something. For some reason it comes on top of Apple’s and NVidia’s presentations or any other i’ve seen of a new product. You’ve heard him well perhaps, but hear him again… It is just that when he comes to the stage, you feel like he will shock you with something any moment. I don’t like when people spoil the whole presentation on the first slide, and it is what Nvidia loves to do for some reason.
Anyway, development is well under way and it looks good. I am sure at patch 3.0 we will be starting to see the light from the tunnel and how the game would play at launch. It is still far, but it is getting there…
feelings are more important than facts.
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