Supporters of Star Citizen who have been waiting for the release of Squadron 42 will have to wait a bit longer to play the game, as creator Chris Roberts shared a blog post this week in which he announced that Squadron 42 should be released in beta in 2020.
The Squadron 42 roadmap shows the proposed timeline for the development of the game, with indicators of the progress on the 28 chapters so far and goals for when they should be completed, from Q4 2018 all the way to Q2 2020. If you click on an indicator, you can see more specific information about what updates have been made to that chapter recently and what phase the chapter is currently in. This unusual tracking system is linked to developer Cloud Imperium’s internal tracking system, so the public can see development as it happens at the studio.
The big news in terms of release dates is that Cloud Imperium plans to complete the game’s content by the end of 2019, then launch the alpha release for the first six months of 2020. After this, the beta should be released in Q2 2020.
Star Citizen made headlines back in 2012 when it raised $6.3 million via crowdsourcing, making it the highest earning crowdfunded game at the time. But the project suffered from severe delays, with the release date for Squadron 42 being pushed back from 2016 to 2017, and now to 2020. The latest update has been possible thanks to the $46 million in investment that Cloud Imperium received from private investors in exchange for 10 percent of the shares in the Cloud Imperium U.S. and U.K. companies. This investment has come along in tandem with new board members for Cloud Imperium.
Cloud Imperium needed this private investment because they decided against using a publisher for their game, which means the company must handle marketing and sales themselves as well as development. “As you all know I am not in favor of putting my destiny in the hands of a third party,” Roberts explained. He went on to describe the investment as a tool which “helps secure our independence” and which “gives Cloud Imperium the ability to take the long view when needed and allows us to grow as a company”.
