Considering how much time has passed and how much money it has raked in so far, Roberts Space Industries’ (RSI) game is starting to look seriously ridiculous.
Star Citizen‘s incredibly successful and seemingly unstoppable financing model could exceed $1 billion by 2026. As of April, the game had raised $800 million; now, it stands at $927,616,773, approaching $928 million. Originally, this money came from traditional crowdfunding. Today, however, Star Citizen raises money through a combination of microtransactions, paid alpha access, and virtual spaceships costing tens of thousands of dollars. At the current rate, Star Citizen could exceed the $1 billion mark in July or August.
Star Citizen has been playable in alpha for years. While it’s fair to say that development hasn’t progressed as quickly as most players would have liked, the alpha version has gradually expanded over the past 13 years since the game was announced. The latest update was released earlier this month. With version 4.5, a new engineering role has been added for players. This role allows players to manage power distribution, repair and replace ship components, and extinguish fires caused by combat or other factors.
But will Star Citizen ever be finished? That’s actually two questions in one. The single-player campaign, the star-studded Squadron 42, is expected to launch next year. However, the absence of the campaign from this year’s CitizenCon Direct raised doubts about the release date. According to content director Jake Huckaby, RSI was focused on completing the game. In October, Huckaby said that 2025 was the target date. He doesn’t know if that will happen; it now seems unlikely. He just knows that they will do everything possible, including skipping CitizenCon to avoid distractions.
As for Star Citizen itself, Chris Roberts estimated in August that it would reach version 1.0 in 2027 or 2028. That’s so far away that even Star Citizen‘s most expensive spaceship could fit in. While the game’s long development time has sparked minor revolts within the community, players appear willing to keep spending money on it until the game launches or until Chris Roberts escapes to the stars in his own spacecraft.
Source: PCGamer, RSI, RSI Patch Notes
