Cloud Imperium Games (henceforth abbreviated as CIG!) May exaggerate Squadron’s 42 plans.

There have been examples of franchise owners who have put a bit too much faith into their games… CIG has moved its headquarters to Manchester. Along with the new location, the plan is to increase the number of employees to over a thousand over the next five years. As part of the plan, Chris Roberts, CIG boss and creator of the Star Citizen/Squadron 42 duo, has moved back to the UK until now lived in Los Angeles. It will allow him to spend more time with the team developing Squadron 42, and CIG’s COO, Carl Jones, hopes that the game will finally be finished.

In the latest issue of MCV/Develop, Jones said, “I guess we’ll see how long [Roberts] needs to be over [in the UK]. But yeah, it could be one or two years more. He’s spending more time here with the Squadron 42 team and our other developers, but it’ll be this year when he moves over for longer periods. Hopefully, that means we can progress Squadron 42 through to completion faster. We want to get that game finished, but it will be finished when it’s ready.”

It sounds somewhat optimistic, yet the star-studded, single-player element of Star Citizen is still years away from the finish line. And the fact that Jones has stressed that once the new studio is fully up and running, they’ll be working on sequels sounds a little worrying. Perhaps they should concentrate on releasing the first instalment first and plan for the second depending on its reception…

On the subject of Star Citizen, Jones gave an even more tentative reaction. CIG makes money by selling spaceships to fans at a golden price, so it doesn’t matter if the company does it in alpha, beta, or store release. Jones says that within five years, by the time the Manchester studio is fully operational, they want to be running a vast MMORPG, which will require more studios around the world… They’re not taking it seriously, are they?

Source: WCCFTech