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'Squadron 42' developers targeting 2020 for alpha, beta releases
Star Citizen creator Chris Roberts announced today that Squadron 42 should be available to play in 2020. According to Roberts, his development team is hoping to be "feature and content complete" on the single-player game by the end of 2019. The game will have a six-month Alpha run during the first half of 2020 and release a Beta build of Squadron 42 sometime in the second quarter of the year.
Latest 'Star Citizen' ship pack costs as much as a car
Just how committed are you to the perpetually unfinished Star Citizen? Committed enough that you'd be willing to take out a loan? If so, you're in luck. Cloud Imperium has introduced a Legatus Pack that gives you 117 ships and 163 extras for $27,000 -- you need to have spent over $1,000 on game content before you can even see the product page (without talking to customer service, at least). Unless you're buying this for a team, this is the kind of purchase you usually only make if you're either filthy rich or need an outlet for your mid-life crisis.
'Star Citizen' switches to Amazon's game engine
Star Citizen is still far from being ready, but it now has a more solid underpinning. Cloud Imperium has revealed that it has switched both Star Citizen and Squadron 42 from Crytek's CryEngine to Amazon's Lumberyard engine as of Star Citizen's just-launched Alpha 2.6 release. It was an "easy and smooth transition" due to Lumberyard's CryEngine roots, but both secures the "long term future" of the games and promises some distinct advantages. It taps directly into the cloud through Amazon Web Services, for instance, and makes Twitch streaming easy.
'Star Citizen' team will share its schedule with the public
Of all the complaints about Star Citizen's development, transparency is one of the biggest. Outside of basic goals, it's hard to know how well the epic-scale space game is coming along at any given moment -- there are concerns that Cloud Imperium Games is frittering away all that crowdfunding money. The company wants to put some of those fears to rest, though. As of Star Citizen's 2.6 alpha, the studio will share its internal development schedule with the public on a weekly basis. Cloud Imperium will clean up the details to make them more accessible, but you'll know whether or not there's a change or setback.
'Star Citizen' presentation hints the game is coming together
We won't blame you if you're skeptical that Star Citizen will ever be a finished, shipping title. Even now, it's not so much a game as a collection of modules: you can explore space and get into gun battles on foot, but not much more. However, Roberts Space Industries just gave an indication that things might be coming along. The studio has shown a 52-minute presentation at Gamescom that illustrates a truly cohesive (if still imperfect) experience coming with the 3.0 alpha. You can board your ship at a space station, fly between planets, pick up missions and touch down on strange new worlds without transitions. It's all modeled as one seamless universe.
'Star Citizen' solo game will cost you extra after February 14th
Right now, pre-ordering Star Citizen gets you both the open, massively multiplayer namesake game and Squadron 42, its recently established single-player counterpart. However, it won't be that good a deal before long. Weeks after announcing the separation of the two games, Cloud Imperium has revealed that Star Citizen and Squadron 42 will officially require separate purchases on February 14th -- yes, they're splitting up on Valentine's Day. From then on, you'll have to buy Squadron 42 either by itself or as an add-on to the title that started it all.
'Star Citizen' gives backers their first taste of a fuller game
To date, what little you could play of Star Citizen has existed in bits and pieces: a dogfight module here, a hangar there, but not the cohesive interstellar experience promised from the start. At last, though, things are coming together. Roberts Space Industries has given backers an Alpha 2.0 release that represents the "first true slice" of the crowdfunded (and much-hyped) game. You can travel between multiple locations around a planet, and first-person ground combat is possible for the first time. Space walks are even an option, if you dare leave the safety of your ship.
What you need to know about Kickstarter, Indiegogo and the concept of crowdfunding
You have what you think is a cool idea, but you aren't sure if you can convince investors about the sales potential of, say, a tiny monitor strapped to your face, or a watch that is also a computer. Besides, who are "investors" and how do you summon them from their secret offshore lairs to pass judgment on your notional widget? Wouldn't it be easier if you could just put your idea on the internet, letting regular people who might be on your wavelength pledge directly to help get it done? That's what crowdfunding is about. Services like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Patreon and others gather funds directly from buyers, to make potentially crazy ideas a reality. Crazy ideas like a salad... made with potatoes. But it's not all free money and rampant innovation.
