With no beta or release date, Star Citizen's Squadron 42 looks further away than ever

midian182

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Facepalm: A lot has happened during Star Citizen’s seemingly never-ending development period: Russia annexed Crimea, a global pandemic began, and we’re about to see a third US president. The ambitious MMO space sim still seems far from complete, and the single-player element, Squadron 42, won’t be here anytime soon, after all mention of the beta was removed from its roadmap

Pre-production of Star Citizen began back in the simpler days of 2010, with the famous Kickstarter campaigns taking place two years later. In 2016, developer Roberts Space Industries (RSI) split Squadron 42 from the main Star Citizen product, selling it as a standalone game for $45 or $15 if you also bought the MMO.

In August 2019, RSI said a beta of Squadron 42 would arrive in the third quarter of this year. That timeframe has passed without sign of any beta, and fans were disappointed in October when studio boss Chris Roberts said the game would be “done when it’s done.”

Things started looking even bleaker on December 23 when any mention of a Squadron 42 beta was removed from its project roadmap. In a letter to donors, Roberts repeated his “done when it’s done” line, adding that there have been “more than a few eagerly awaited titles release before they were bug free and fully polished,” no doubt referencing a certain cyberpunk-themed game.

Roberts writes that none of Squadron 42’s “gameplay, locations, or assets” will be shown due to the final release being so far away. “If we show the non-spoiler gameplay now, that’s prime footage and gameplay that could have been used closer to release,” he added.

“Because of this 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.”

Star Citizen has now raised over $339 million from almost 3 million backers. One might imagine that pledges have decreased as the years go by, but the opposite is true: a record $77+ million was raised in 2020, beating last year’s record of $47.7 million, notes Polygon, most of which came from people buying and renting ships.

Squadron 42, whenever it gets here, could satisfy the cravings felt by fans of Roberts’ other famous space sim, Wing Commander. It features a Hollywood cast including Henry Cavill, Gillian Anderson, Mark Hamill, Gary Oldman, Mark Strong, and John Rhys Davies.

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Vaporware 101. Reminds me of of games that had extended development cycles from decades past. The developer keeps moving the goal posts provided the money is there.

This is really people being duped to fund a peretual service. What's the incentive for releasing a final game? There isn't one. So long as the money stream continues, they can easily deflect criticism on a work in progress. Not something they (RSI) will be able to do on a final "Game is Done" release.
 
This is why the industry stopped giving Roberts any money.

And what is this game again? Not the broad, unreal promises of 5 different releases in different genres but what is actually released, complete, fully integrated, and functional?

Sadly, I have an order confirmation from 09/26/13 - all I wanted was another Wing Commander/arcade space shooter...
 
These articles are honestly kind of repetitive and it feel like you're going in doing a ctrl + C then a good old ctrl + V, while changing a few numbers. We get it SQ42 was delayed again, but I guess the normal updates on its sister aren't as exciting. And rob if you want theirs an easy follow up to your article about the SQ42 road map. Easy picking id say if you want to spice things up a little bit.
 
I have to ask: why the "facepalm" as the start of the article of a game getting delayed when we just saw what happened to Cyberpunk 2077 after not getting further delayed when it clearly should have been?

I also don't get people calling SC a scam when you can actually go and buy and play it - whether you'll like it or not is another thing but you can't deny that it's something that is palpable compared to just empty promises and failures.

You also can't deny that they've been adding more features over the years, features that aren't just words and pretty presentations.
Maybe that's the key to why they've kept getting more money: because they've shown that they can deliver on their promises.

And wouldn't you rather play a game that has the decency of saying that it's not complete and still in development over a game that is "released" and marketed as a complete game when it clearly isn't?
Is the wording that important to you?

If you can buy a product without having to sign an NDA and it's publicly available, then it's "released" - it's out there for people to experience. The important bit is to not lie about the state your product is in whether it's still in active development or marketed as complete.
 
CIG has no incentive to ship the game at this point; it makes more money selling the "dream" of Star Citizen than it would actually shipping the game at $60-$70 a shot.

Star Citizen will never ship until the money runs out, and even then, "key systems" will be outdated and need to be "rebuilt" before launch.
 
This is a racket. There's no incentive to finish this. Quite the opposite, releasing the game seems to be the only thing that would end the gravy train, so..
 
I loved Wing Commander... and Wing Commander II.... but then Roberts was given more power and we got the overproduced wrecks called Wing Commanders III and IV which were basically B movies disguised as games...

Now he has complete power - and we get Star Citizen... I don’t think it’s an intentional scam. Roberts is incredibly ambitious and also a control freak - and reality will never match his vision... I suspect that in 30 years, it will still be in beta as Roberts continues to add improvements.

For those of you who enjoy what is on offer now, though, this isn’t so bad... you’ll have a game that will be continually supported for years... just don’t get your hopes up for timely updates...
 
I have to ask: why the "facepalm" as the start of the article of a game getting delayed when we just saw what happened to Cyberpunk 2077 after not getting further delayed when it clearly should have been?

I also don't get people calling SC a scam when you can actually go and buy and play it - whether you'll like it or not is another thing but you can't deny that it's something that is palpable compared to just empty promises and failures.

You also can't deny that they've been adding more features over the years, features that aren't just words and pretty presentations.
Maybe that's the key to why they've kept getting more money: because they've shown that they can deliver on their promises.

And wouldn't you rather play a game that has the decency of saying that it's not complete and still in development over a game that is "released" and marketed as a complete game when it clearly isn't?
Is the wording that important to you?

If you can buy a product without having to sign an NDA and it's publicly available, then it's "released" - it's out there for people to experience. The important bit is to not lie about the state your product is in whether it's still in active development or marketed as complete.

You sound like a backer of this scam of game still holding onto that dream....

Starcitizen will still be in alpha status 5 years from now it was suppose to released in 2014!!!!

As everyone else has pointed out why bother even finishing the game when suckers will keep lining up to throw money at you for an unfinished product.

And no I didn't buy cyberpunk I'm smart enough not to buy into hype and most certainly not foolish enough to get involved with SC. In year from now when cyberpunk is patched goty version released I may grab it.
 
Those 300 millions they gathered is a huge responsibility. I mean once people stop believing, there is no going back. I wish they released new stuff a bit faster. Let it be in smaller packs, not perfectly polished, but giving players a sense of something huge coming in steady increments.
Besides, when making AAA projects, there is no way to not make mistakes. Squadron will still need patches and and adjustments before it is perfect.
Instead, they announced campaign long ago. And that's it. Money keeps coming, the content not so much. And besides, every day they are "working" on the game, they keep paying themselves. I bet there are enough workers and CEOs to have comfy salary while they are "working" on the game till they retire.
 
Chris R never came across to me as a particularly original producer. I believe that the Wing Commander series was basically a Luke Skywalker / Top Gun simulator, and was only successful because of a lack of Star Wars gaming products at the time. Privateer and Freelancer were essentially Han Solo simulators. It was lightning in a bottle, luckily timed to coincide with the 1990s Gulf War zeitgeist and marketed for Generation X. It even seemed like CR was roleplaying a personal fantasy as George Lucas with his movie productions.

Times have moved on. The concept is old. He's even using actors that more or less peaked around twenty years ago. I'd be very surprised if the final Star Citizen product (if finished at all!) will offer anything new in gameplay beyond having lots of shiny things. I just don't think CR has the creative capacity to do something beyond recycling and polishing old tropes.
 
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It's been months since I spun this game up, but I can say it's unplayable.

Either it's a scam, or they're incompetent. Either way, the consumer loses.
Neither one. It is a game in Alpha, something most player never participate in because they want to play a finifh game only. Which is fine.
Still don't insult backers who do understand what they are playing and supporting. Already hundreds hours of entertainment fo less than a triple-A cost.
 
Chris R never came across to me as a particularly original producer. I believe that the Wing Commander series was basically a Luke Skywalker / Top Gun simulator, and was only successful because of a lack of Star Wars gaming products at the time. Privateer and Freelancer were essentially Han Solo simulators. It was lightning in a bottle, luckily timed to coincide with the 1990s Gulf War zeitgeist and marketed for Generation X. It even seemed like CR was roleplaying a personal fantasy as George Lucas with his movie productions.

Times have moved on. The concept is old. He's even using actors that more or less peaked around twenty years ago. I'd be very surprised if the final Star Citizen product (if finished at all!) will offer anything new in gameplay beyond having lots of shiny things. I just don't think CR has the creative capacity to do something beyond recycling and polishing old tropes.
False. There are +40 actors including not only Mark Hamill but also Gillian Anderson, Mark Strong, Liam Cunningham, Ben Mendelsohn, John Rhys Davies, Andy Serkis...

CR was the first to use Marc in its first Wing commander successful series and it is a nice touch to have such a great actor in SQ42. Your ranting about WC series being successful because of the lake of SW movies is gross... really if you don't like CR just say it but don't slap gamer face who did enjoyed WC because it was simply... great
 
Star Citizen looks like it's gonna be the next Cyberpunk.

Nu-uh, not if there is no game to show, for if there is nothing to show there is no dissapointment ah-ha Chris gone done it again! Buy an idris!

Wonder when *****s backing this nonsense will turn around and say "what about not showing you any more money until it's done?"
 
Not really as they precisely refuse to give date as CDPR did to finally release a game requiring at least a year of patch and free DLC's to make it a finished game.

How simply marvelous, and it's not like CIG need to be accountable for all the cash they've taken directly from backers over the past decade is it? That isn't how it works, CDPR couldn't turn around to the people that pre-ordered and said "hey no game until Chris Roberts himself says it's good enough but hey we keep the cash no refunds lol here are ways to spend more money than the game's cover price in advance of us even showing you a demo and here are some more self congratulationary press releases thanks to CIG for showing us how PC gamers are fools don't forget to pay thousands of dollars because this game NEEDS to happen lol morons kerching kerching"

CIG have promoted "release" windows numerous times over the years and heavily implied that SQ42 was coming soon at trade shows. What happened to "answer the call 2016" or "answer the call 2017" etc? Oh they are so much better than CDPR and deserve a big pat on the back because corn fed Chris only promoted his game for the past decade with vertical slice trailers and talking head videos and release "year" teasers...all the time taking cash directly from consumers under his own terms with no regulation or consumer rights and upselling game in game dlc for nothing and NOW after all this time simply won't show you anything like those horrible CDPR ameteurs because his game isn't good enough. Beautiful Chris must fart pure gold or something.

If Roberts wants to crowd fund he's accountable to backers. If he turns around and says "I got nothing to show that won't dissapoint lol so I'm a big boy developer lol don't forget to keep funding the Roberts family trust"... after this amount of time, self-promotion and marketing that implied otherwise... how is that not a scam?
 
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X86 architecture will die sooner than SC is out. Imagine if they had to recompile all of that for ARM for example...

There is higher chance of finding a honest politician than SC ever being released. That sums it up in a nutshell.
 
You sound like a backer of this scam of game still holding onto that dream....

Starcitizen will still be in alpha status 5 years from now it was suppose to released in 2014!!!!

As everyone else has pointed out why bother even finishing the game when suckers will keep lining up to throw money at you for an unfinished product.

And no I didn't buy cyberpunk I'm smart enough not to buy into hype and most certainly not foolish enough to get involved with SC. In year from now when cyberpunk is patched goty version released I may grab it.
Yes, I am a backer of SC but I didn't back it on day one when it was first on KS and just a promise, in fact at that time I chose to back Elite Dangerous instead because of their excellent demo and because of their more sensible promises.

And during SC's timeframe, ED alpha came out, then beta, gamma, the game released and even has multiple DLCs out... and I actually regret supporting it.

I would rather play SC as it is now, incomplete and with its bugs but continually supported, than ED which was released as a grind fest and has turned into an endless grind fest despite its promises and customer feedback.

As for CB2077, I will probably skip it completely... I refuse to support any dev that lies and leads customers to the extent they've done. I don't even care about the bugs as much as I do about all the other game systems that are so obviously just MVP when they promised "next-gen" everything.
 
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