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Less than 18 months after clearing the $300 million mark, Star Citizen has now raised over $400 million in crowdfunding. At the time of writing, 3,364,629 players have contributed a total of $402,657,305 according to its funding goals page.
Star Citizen is currently having a free-fly period, which runs until December 1, coinciding with the in-game Intergalactic Aerospace Expo on the planet microTech. During the expo ships from different manufacturers are available to rent every 48 hours. It’s like a car show, only without a bunch of hoons doing donuts in a field somewhere off to the side. And it coincides with a huge spike in funding, which went from an average of under $200,000 per day to well over $700,000 on the event’s first day. Today’s total is nearing two million.
If you’re wondering whether that total will mean we hear more about the release of Star Citizen’s singleplayer partner Squadron 42, the answer is “probably not”. Near the end of last year, in his annual letter from the chairman, Cloud Imperium Games founder Chris Roberts wrote that, “Squadron 42 will be done when it is done, and will not be released just to make a date, but instead only when all the technology and content is finished, the game is polished, and it plays great.”
Alluding to the then-fresh release of Cyberpunk 2077, he went on to say, “Over the past few years, I’ve seen more than a few eagerly awaited titles release before they were bug free and fully polished. This holiday season is no exception. This is just another reminder to me of why I am so lucky to have such a supportive community, as well as a development model that is funded by people that care about the best game possible, and not about making their quarterly numbers or the big holiday shopping season.”
He went on to conclude 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.”
A recent update on Squadron 42’s development from September described progress being made on “vital backend services, AI behaviors, and cockpit communications.” You can keep track of what’s being worked on in both Squadron 42 and Star Citizen via the progress tracker. The alpha’s most recent patch added things like big bombs, and hospitals in which to recover from getting big bombs dropped on you.
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