What are Star Citizen and Squadron 42?
Star Citizen, massively multiplayer Persistent Universe in which the player evolves in the space universe of the 30th century, 930 years after our era, governed by the United Empire of Earth (UEE), and Squadron 42, a multi-chapter single-player campaign in which the player enlisted in the UEE Navy, are two parts of a video game adventure and space simulation published and developed by Cloud Imperium Games (CIG), under the direction of Chris Roberts, known for creating games as Wing Commander, Wing Commander: Privateer, Starlancer and Freelancer.
The project was initially presented by Chris Roberts on October 10, 2012 in San Francisco at the Game Developers Conference and was the subject of a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. The initial idea being to offer players a single-player campaign, Squadron 42, and a multiplayer Persistent Universe, all on PC and without subscription, as well as private servers that can accommodate mods, and support for virtual reality headsets. Except that over time, the ambitions concerning the development of the project have strongly evolved...
The Persistent Universe, which was only supposed to be a multiplayer extension of the single-player campaign, has finally become a full-fledged game in which the player can enjoy full freedom in a universe announcing no less than a hundred systems, being able to choose various paths, career plans, etc. Ambitions that are both encouraging for the future of the game, as they promise us an exceptional game, but also frightening because it is still far from imagining the end of the tunnel when we take the time to analyze all that remains to be done before we can hope to leave the Alpha phase.
An Open Development
Since the launch of the project, one of the strong points of the project is the "open development" allowing players to have a view on the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42. This follow-up takes the form of videos, monthly reports, roadmap, a presentation of the distribution of the work of the different development teams, etc. and of course continuous access to the Alpha of Star Citizen which is regularly updated every quarter. This means that even if no release date is known yet, everyone who contributes to the development by acquiring a simple starter pack can already access the game in its current state via the LIVE servers.
A participative funding plan
Although the Kickstarter campaign ended on November 19, 2012 with $2,134,374 in revenue and 34,397 donors, the funding model has continued on the official Roberts Space Industries website. Today, anyone who purchases a Starter Pack, a ship or any other product for sale on the official site is a "backer", or contributor to the project. Except that this choice to continue the crowdfunding campaign beyond the Kickstarter campaign was, and still is, controversial...
By going without a publisher and creating his own company Cloud Imperium Games, Chris Roberts freed himself from any financial pressure from a third party that could force the release of the game earlier than it should be. Where publishers release games that are often overly buggy, unfinished, or even sloppy, CIG and Chris Roberts can argue that they want to "release the game when it's ready to be released, not before. However, after 10 years of development, some people are wondering if the game will really be released one day, despite the huge amount of credits collected over the years.
Of course, it should not be forgotten that the game is currently accessible via the Alpha, and that any contributor with a starter pack can already access the Persistent Universe, even if it is not yet in its final phase. In addition, so-called "Free Fly" periods are regularly organized and allow the most curious to explore the Persistent Universe for free without having contributed to the development funding.
But whether you are just curious or a hardcore player, whatever your "contribution" to the game, keep in mind that the game is in Alpha phase, which implies many bugs that can even be blocking, sometimes resetting your progress in the game, unimplemented features, etc. The game is far from being finished, do not invest in the game if your only goal is to get early access, but do it to support its development. You will have plenty of time to play the game once it is finished, or at least when it's closer to the final version.
