Squadron 42, Star Citizen’s ambitious single-player portion, is still a no-show. And according to the developer, this will stay for the foreseeable future, too. At least, until very close to the game’s release.
It’s hard to say this comes as a big surprise, to be honest. Star Citizen is pretty much synonymous with long development times and delays at this time. The game is quickly closing in on a decade since its reveal.
While the online persistent universe aspect of Star Citizen always sounded enticing, many fans were at least equally interested in Squadron 42. The bespoke single-player campaign of Star Citizen.
It’s easy to understand why. Chris Roberts is the mastermind behind Star Citizen after all. The game designer is best-known for his work on the iconic Wing Commander series, Starlancer, and Freelancer. Some of the most popular space epics ever.
It would be a huge disservice to all the team members that have poured so much love and hard work into Squadron 42 if we rushed it out or cut corners to put it in the hands of everyone who is clamoring for it – Chris Roberts
Since the genre lost all of its momentum in the past decades, Roberts seemed like the perfect person to resurrect it. Hundreds of millions of dollars in crowdfunding and external investments made Star Citizen proved that.
But years upon years of delays led to a shift among its community. Many simply weren’t happy with CI Games’ speed and communication. In the end, a new Roadmap was established this month.
Together with it, company head Chris Roberts also shared a message about the state of Star Citizen and Squadron 42. The big takeaway is, anyone hoping to see more about the latter soon, needs to muster up additional patience.
Chris Roberts doesn’t want to create false anticipation by either giving a release date they might not be able to keep or blow away anticipation by starting marketing too early. In the end, it all means that they will show more about Squadron 42 only shortly before the game’s final release.