Big Star Citizen event introduces new system, new ships and new clouds

Cloud Imperium Games hosted its CitizenCon event – albeit in digital form – and it showcased a number of new features coming to the space game.

However, there was no live gameplay demo and no release date was offered for any part of the controversial and long-standing development game.

And Squadron 42, the story-driven game starring Hollywood actors, was a no-show.

CitizenCon kicked off with a brief message from CIG Founder and CEO Chris Roberts, who spoke of the challenge of moving some 720 people to work from home due to the pandemic. Despite this, Roberts said, 2020 and 2021 have been strong for the game, with daily player counts averaging two to three times higher than at this point in 2019.

What followed was a series of pre-recorded videos, each focusing on a different aspect of Star Citizen’s development. The highlight, perhaps, was the Life In The ‘Verse panel, below, which offers a tour of the game’s current universe and a look at Pyro, the next system to be added to the game, and its whimsical volumetric clouds. .

Here is one of the most beautiful clips presented during the panel:

Players also had the pleasure of seeing the Origin 400i ship:

But CitizenCon failed to make a headline-grabbing announcement such as a release date – or even a release window – that CIG is aiming for in order to deliver what it sees as the “definitive version.” “from Star Citizen, as Roberts described in the opening remarks. .

Star Citizen’s current roadmap sets Update 3.15 to release in Q3 2021 – so it’s already late. 3.16 should be released by the end of the year. 3.17 is scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2022 and 3.18 is tentatively set for the second quarter of next year. No publish window is defined beyond this point.

And what about Squadron 42? A year ago, in October 2020, Roberts admitted that CIG “still had a ways to go” before Squadron 42 even reached beta. Squadron 42 is currently seven years behind its original delivery target.

Squadron 42 is meant to be a story-driven, single-player cinematic adventure, similar to the Wing Commander games Roberts made their name with in the 90s. CIG has released flashy trailers for the game, featuring Virtual recreations of Hollywood actors such as Mark Hamill, Gillian Anderson, Gary Oldman, and Mark Strong, but it has yet to become playable for backers in any form.

Star Citizen’s long and controversial development is well documented, and Roberts has been criticized for years for not releasing the game or providing a target release date. CIG earns money by selling starter packs, subscriptions, and virtual spaceships. In March, the game broke the $ 350 million mark raised from more than three million customers. Star Citizen has now raised over $ 390 million.

Almost $ 2 million was won yesterday, September 9 – the day of CitizenCon.