Star Citizen
Star Citizen is an online space trading and combat simulation game under development by Cloud Imperium Games and published by Roberts Space Industries for Windows. An extended retry of unrealized plans for Freelancer (2003), Star Citizen is led by director Chris Roberts. The game was announced in 2012 and was followed by a Kickstarter campaign which drew over US$2 million. After more tha
Overview
Star Citizen is an online space trading and combat simulation game under development by Cloud Imperium Games and published by Roberts Space Industries for Windows. An extended retry of unrealized plans for Freelancer (2003), Star Citizen is led by director Chris Roberts. The game was announced in 2012 and was followed by a Kickstarter campaign which drew over US$2 million. After more than a decade in development, no projected date for the end of early access in Star Citizen has been announced. In 2013, Cloud Imperium Games began releasing parts of the game, known as "modules", to provide players with the opportunity to experience gameplay features prior to release. The "Persistent Universe" module was made available for testing to pre-purchasers in 2015 with Star Citizen released in early access in 2017. It continues to receive updates. Star Citizen has garnered criticism during its long production process, both for the lack of a clear date for the end of early access and for the challenges backers have faced in getting a refund after abandoning the project. The launch of the game was originally anticipated for 2014, but has been repeatedly delayed. After the initial Kickstarter ended, Cloud Imperium Games continued to raise funds through the sale of ships and other in-game content. Star Citizen monetization models have led to further criticism and legal issues for the project. It is one of the highest-funded crowdfunding projects. As of May 2026, combined crowdfunding and early access sales had passed US$1 billion, making Star Citizen one of the most expensive video games to develop and among the most expensive single pieces of entertainment produced.
Gameplay
Star Citizen combines features from space simulator, first-person shooter, and massively multiplayer online genres in a larger multiplayer 'persistent universe', as well as a combined dogfighting mod/first-person shooter combat sim called 'Arena Commander'.
Persistent Universe
The Persistent Universe is the main, open-world, and massively multiplayer game mode of Star Citizen. Players can freely navigate and explore the surfaces of over a dozen planets and moons. Players can create male or female avatars for the Persistent Universe. Upon entering the mode, players spawn at a space station or a city. Once spawned, players are given the freedom to choose what they pursue, whether it is trading, bounty hunting, mining, or taking on missions. A law system keeps track of player activities and penalizes players for engaging in criminal behavior with prison time when captured. In order to reduce their criminal rating, players must hack the law enforcement network, pay off any fines they have incurred, or serve their prison sentence. Movement is available in both gravity and zero-gravity environments. Different planets have different gravitational pulls which alter player jump heights. In zero-gravity, players can move with six degrees of freedom, with forward movement possible through thrusters on their backs. If a player enters a ship, they can freely traverse it with artificial gravity affecting them. While the final game will use an in-game currency called UEC, short for United Earth Credits, the current early-access version uses a temporary currency called aUEC (Alpha United Earth Credits), which will be reset from time to time and at the release of the game. Any purchased or rented ship or vehicle can be spawned by the player at a landing zone via the ASOP Vehicle Retrieval Terminals. Ships can be purchased with real-world funds or at in-game kiosks with earned credits. Rental ships can be procured at separate kiosks for intervals ranging from a few days to a month. If a ship is destroyed, players must file an insurance claim and wait a period of time for it to be delivered. Players can pilot ships both in space and in atmospheres; transitions between the two occur without loading screens in real time. Planets in the game are procedurally generated with distinct biomes and areas of interest. On each planet is a landing zone, often within a city, where players can disembark and explore on foot. Some cities include transit systems that connect various sections together. Stores that carry various weapons and items can be found in these zones, allowing players to purchase equipment and trade goods for their character and ships. On most planets, cave systems are available for players to explore, in which they can take on investigation missions or mine for rare ores.
Arena Commander
Arena Commander is an in-fiction combat simulator allowing players to engage in combat against other players or AI enemies either on-foot or with a spaceship. In the Free Flight game type, players can fly their ships with no predefined objective. The Vanduul Swarm and Pirate Swarm game modes are cooperative missions where players fight waves of AI enemies. Capture the Core is a game type inspired by classic capture the flag rules, where a team must capture the opposing team's core and deposit it on their side. A racing game type, set on a specifically designed map with three courses, allows players to fly through checkpoints and attempt to beat each other's time. Game types like Battle Royale and Team place players in direct opposition of one another, gaining points for destroying enemy ships. G-force effects on the pilot were introduced in Arena Commander, which could cause the player character to black out if they moved in a way that applied substantial g-forces on the ship. Equipment to customize ships used in Arena Commander can be rented to further allow for modification of player ship combat ability. While a multi-crew component of Arena Commander was announced at a 2015 Star Citizen conference, it has yet to be implemented in the game.
Hangar module
In the hangar module, players were able to explore or modify their purchased ships that have been publicly released and interact with the ship's systems, though no flying options were available. Also included were decorations and flair that can be placed and arranged within the hangar. The hangar module was removed in Alpha Patch 3.13.1a, released on May 2021. Its functionality has largely been implemented into the Persistent Universe.
Star Marine
Star Marine is an in-fiction ground combat simulator, allowing players to fight each other with conventional weaponry. Two maps were made available on release, along with two game types: Elimination and Last Stand. Last Stand is a "capture-and-hold" game type in which two opposing teams (the Marines and the Outlaws) each attempt to capture one or more control points to gain points; as a team captures more control points, they gain points at a steadily increasing rate. Elimination is a free-for-all game type; unlike the team-based "Last Stand", players work individually to gain the highest kill-count before the match ends. Both game variants last for ten minutes or (in the case of Last Stand) until one team accrues the higher score. Star Marine was merged with Arena Commander with Alpha Patch 2.6.0, released in 2016.
Squadron 42
Squadron 42 is a story-based single-player game set in the Star Citizen fictional universe described by the developers as a "spiritual successor to Wing Commander". It is being developed by the Foundry 42 studio under the supervision of Chris Roberts' brother Erin, who had already worked with him on the Wing Commander series and led the production and development of games like Privateer 2: The Darkening and Starlancer. It was originally announced for release in 2014 during the Kickstarter campaign, but was delayed multiple times. In mid-2019 CIG stated that a beta release was planned before the end of Q2 2020, then an estimated Q3 2020 on a now abandoned roadmap. In December 2020 Chris Roberts announced there will be no official release date or gameplay footage at this time. "I have decided that it is best to not show Squadron 42 gameplay publicly, nor discuss any release date until we are closer to the home stretch and have high confidence in the remaining time needed to finish the game to the quality we want". At CitizenCon 2024, first gameplay parts of Squadron 42 were shown and a release in 2026 was suggested. In August 2026, Roberts announced that the game's release window was delayed to Q2 2027. The developers state that the interactive storyline centers on an elite military unit and involves the player character enlisting in the United Empire of Earth Navy, taking part in a campaign that starts with a large space battle. The player's actions will allow them to optionally achieve citizenship in the UEE and affect their status in the Star Citizen persistent universe, but neither of the two games has to be played in order to access the other. In addition to space combat simulation and first-person shooter elements, reported features include a conversation system that affects relationships with non-player pilots. An optional co-operative mode was initially proposed in the Kickstarter, but later changed to be a separate mode added after release. The game is planned to be released in multiple episodes, and according to the developers will be offering an estimated 20 hours of gameplay for Squadron 42 Episode One with about 70 missions worth of gameplay. Squadron 42 Episodes Two and Three will launch later. The cast for Squadron 42 includes Gary Oldman, Mark Hamill, Gillian Anderson, Mark Strong, Liam Cunningham, Andy Serkis, John Rhys-Davies, Jack Huston, Eleanor Tomlinson, Harry Treadaway, Sophie Wu, Damson Idris, Eric Wareheim, Rhona Mitra, Henry Cavill, and Ben Mendelsohn amongst others.
Background
Star Citizen is under development by Cloud Imperium Games, a studio founded by Chris Roberts, Sandi Roberts, and Ortwin Freyermuth in 2012. While working at Origin Systems from 1990 to 1996, Roberts became known for his groundbreaking Wing Commander franchise. After the completion of Starlancer in 1999 by Roberts' studio Digital Anvil, lengthy delays in the production of extensive plans for the game Freelancer led to the company's acquisition by Microsoft and Roberts' exit from the project. Completed under a new lead and numerous staff replacements, the finished game was well received, but criticized for lacking the extensive features Roberts had planned. Roberts has since claimed that Star Citizen is a spiritual successor to both Wing Commander and Freelancer. Pre-production of Star Citizen began in 2010 with production starting in 2011 using CryEngine 3. Several contractors and outsourced development companies such as CGBot, Rmory, VoidAlpha and Behaviour Interactive were hired to build an early prototype of the game and concept art. The goal of the prototype was to gain outside investment, but following the success for the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter campaign, Roberts decided to crowdfund the game instead. After hiring Ortwin Freyermuth, Ben Lesnick, and David Swofford, Cloud Imperium Games was formed with the intention of building the initial campaign. Star Citizen was officially announced at GDC on October 10, 2012, during which the website they had built for the campaign crashed. Following the GDC presentation, the company announced a Kickstarter campaign on October 18, 2012. A heavily modified version of Amazon Lumberyard called StarEngine is used for the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42. The game was originally developed on CryEngine 3 before switching to Lumberyard in December 2016. According to creative director Chris Roberts, the decision to switch to Lumberyard was based on its online services such as deep back-end cloud integration on Amazon Web Services and its social component with live-streaming platform Twitch.
Kickstarter and early releases
In its initial debut on Kickstarter, Star Citizen was marketed as "everything that made Wing Commander and Privateer / Freelancer special". The proposed game was claimed to include a single-player story driven mode called Squadron 42 that would include drop in/drop out co-op, a company-hosted persistent universe mode, a self-hosted, mod-friendly multiplayer mode, no subscriptions, and no pay-to-win mechanics. The initial estimated target release date was stated to be November 2014, with all proposed features available at launch. Additional promised features included virtual reality support, flight stick support, and a focus on high-end PC hardware. While the initial release would be targeted for Windows, Roberts stated that Linux support was a goal for the project after its official release. As development continued, Chris Roberts announced in August 2013 that they would be releasing the "Hangar Module", a way for players to explore an enclosed space and some of the ships that have been completed. The module was released six days later, on August 29, and was considered the "first deliverable" of the project. This would mark the beginning of Star Citizen's modular development process, where smaller pieces of the game would be released leading up to the release of the Persistent Universe. During this early period, it was announced that the games would utilize the artificial intelligence system Kythera, developed by Moon Collider. The game is produced in a distributed development process by Cloud Imperium Games and Foundry 42 with studios in Austin, Frankfurt, Santa Monica, Wilmslow, and Derby. Additional partners that are or have been working on the project include Turbulent, Virtuos, and Wyrmbyte. Turbulent was acquired by Cloud Imperium Games in July 2023.
Arena Commander
Arena Commander, the "flight combat" module, was released on June 4, 2014. It allows players to test the ship combat and racing portion of the game against other players or AI opponents in various game types. These game types were released to all players as single-player offerings, with a small number of players receiving access to the multiplayer version with plans to scale until the module was considered fully released. On August 11, 2014, Arena Commander was updated to open access to all players and added the Capture the Core game type. The module continued to get updates through 2014, with the addition of a racing mode and other fixes in September. By December, Arena Commander had reached version 1.0 and was considered a "significant milestone" for the project.
Star Marine
Star Marine was considered the "FPS module" for Star Citizen. The module was announced at PAX Australia 2014 with a projected release date in 2015. The development of Star Marine was contracted out to the Colorado-based third-party studio IllFonic. Initially, the module was set to include features like teams starting within a ship and needing to fly to a space station to begin their engagements and much more EVA-based gameplay including the disabling of gravity during matches. However, close to being finished, CIG found that the assets that were built for the module weren't at the same scale as those built for the rest of the game. By August 2015, the contract was terminated and development of Star Marine returned to an in-house team at Cloud Imperium Games. The issues plaguing Star Marine's development caused significant delays, pushing the release beyond the originally expected 2015 release date. Just prior to the module being pulled from Illfonic, outlets began reporting that the module was "delayed indefinitely" or "cancelled". During development in 2015, a game type called SATA Ball was announced, an in-game sport where players would be split up into two teams and would fight each other in a zero-gravity environment. It has yet to be implemented in the game. During an episode of Ask the Devs (Cloud Imperium's semi-weekly informative video series), it was revealed that SATABall had been designed to test zero-g traversal mechanics, and with the introduction of the Persistent Universe the game mode had become redundant.[1] The module was released on December 23, 2016, a year after its original projected release date.
Persistent Universe
While the previous modules were primarily focused on a single aspect of gameplay, the release of Star Citizen's Alpha 2.0 version, initially known as Crusader, was a combination of gameplay elements found in earlier modules. Its initial release was on December 11, 2015, a year after the Star Citizen project was originally planned for completion. Later retitled as "Universe", the module became the primary focus of development on Star Citizen, with future updates focused on implementing content to this mode. Star Citizen's Alpha 3.0, considered to be a major milestone, was announced for a December 2016 release at Gamescom 2016. Two months later, in October 2016 at the annual CitizenCon event, Cloud Imperium Games claimed that Alpha 3.0 would be split into four smaller releases. When December arrived, Cloud Imperium Games made a surprise announcement that they would be migrating Star Citizen to the Amazon Lumberyard engine. Alpha 3.0 wouldn't release until December 2017, and following its release the developers implemented a public roadmap that would show features and content that was in development for the future. As development continued, Cloud Imperium Games began releasing more features in incremental versions that built on Alpha 3.0. Early updates focused on implementing initial gameplay mechanics specific to the Persistent Universe module and efforts to stabilize the "barely playable" Alpha 3.0 update. Face-over-IP technology was implemented in Alpha 3.3, which was built in partnership with FaceWare Technologies. Feature additions continued through 2019 as Cloud Imperium Games adopted a quarterly schedule for providing updates to the module, though concerns over its lengthy development continued. During the development of Star Citizen's Alpha 3.8 update, the developers discussed their implementation of a technology known as Object Container Streaming. Due to the scale of the game, challenges arose wherein the project would run into memory limitations on both the client and the server side of the Persistent Universe. While they had released a client-side version of Object Container Streaming in December 2018, a server-side version had been in development to alleviate those limitations even further. The developers noted that a server-side implementation would alleviate existing limitations with the project and said that, if completed, it would be "one of the biggest technological milestones this game has seen to date." With the release of Alpha 3.18 update, the game experienced major outages.
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