Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Star Citizen developer shuts down “feature creep” and vaporware accusations

Gabe Gurwin
By

star citizen chairman open letter chris roberts 2
With over $2 million in funding from Kickstarter backers alone and $84 million in total, Star Citizen is one of the most expensive — and ambitious — crowdfunded games of all time. However, with that reputation comes allegations that the project has simply gotten too big for its own good, and its “First Person Universe” vision has drawn skeptics who don’t believe that the studio can deliver on its grandiose promises. Now, Robert Space Industries chairman Chris Roberts has released an open letter to ease frustrations.

News spread late last month that Star Citizen‘s first-person shooter module Star Marine was being put on indefinite hold following technical issues, including problems with networking. According to Roberts, this isn’t completely true. While the module did face setbacks, including several staff departures, it is still in active development, and an update post released late last week showed off tweaks to everything from level design to death animations.

Recommended Videos

Roberts also stressed that Star Citizen‘s importance is because of its massive scope, and a smaller project would not have garnered this much support.

“Star Citizen matters BECAUSE it is big, because it is a bold dream,” Roberts says. “It is something everyone else is scared to try. You didn’t back Star Citizen because you want what you’ve seen before.”

Still, with such a large budget and lofty promises, Roberts admits that the studio did reach a point where it was forced to stop adding features, which led to “the decision to stop stretch goals at the end of last year.” Currently, of the six modules that make up Star Citizen, four are still in the production phase, including the aforementioned Star Marine and the story-driven Squadron 42.  The decision to split the project into modules was precisely due to this ambition, as Robert Space Industries wanted players to experience segments of Star Citizen while the remainder was still in development.

“This is the dream game that all of us have wanted to build all our lives,” Roberts says. “And while I can’t promise you everything will always go smoothly or features or content won’t arrive later than we want them to, I can promise that we will never stop until we have achieved this dream.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Gabe Gurwin
Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
Star Citizen reaches $100 million and gets FPS mode with Alpha 2.0 update
star citizen 100 million alpha 2 0 screenshot 2015 12 13 at 33 38

Wishes do come true. While developments for Star Citizen have been slow in coming, developer Cloud Imperium Games sometimes delivers the goods. In the game’s most recent update, it went all the way to Alpha 2.0, adding a healthy dose of new features. Included are glimpses of the game's persistent universe. You can also travel between multiple on-planet locations and take a wild jump into nothingness on a space walk (good thing your suit is equipped with mini-thrusters to keep you from disappearing). If you get the urge to pull the trigger, you can now partake in the game’s first-person shooter (FPS) mode in either a single-player or multi-player mode. As you might recall, the developer put the FPS module on indefinite hold this summer, so this update should calm the nerves of those who desperately craved multiplayer mayhem.

Star Citizen offers its backers a bumpy ride before arriving at its destination. Backers are concerned about the budget and feature set promised by Chris Roberts, CEO and co-founder of Cloud Imperium Games. While the team has kept an ongoing dialogue with the community via its own forum and social media, some people say that the developer has been haphazard with its adding of new content. Any future stretch goals have been “redacted”, as written on the game’s website. With that said, the game has now collected over a whopping $100 million from over 1,000,000 backers.

Read more
Mad Catz insane Star Citizen controller will make you the envy of the galaxy
mad catz star citizen hotas madcatzstarcitizen 1

As the massive crowdfunding starship that is Star Citizen cruises ever closer towards an official release, it's not surprising to start seeing purpose-built controllers and merchandise pop up. At the same time, I don't think anything could've prepared us properly for the hardcore battlestation glory that is the Star Citizen HOTAS from Mad Catz. The peripheral manufacturer brought the massive setup to the annual CitizenCon in Manchester, England, and showed off the new gear.

The sprawling control panel has every attachment you could possibly need. The full-sized throttle has a trackball on it for weapons on a gimbal, and a throttle setup, plus a small control panel with extra macro buttons. There's a full keyboard as well, complete with numpad and gaming keys, but the Mad Catz controller has one more trick up its sleeve.

Read more
Crowdfunded Wing Commander successor Star Citizen hits one million backers
star citizen hits one million backers fighter

Cloud Imperium Games' in-progress space sim Star Citizen has surpassed its one millionth backer as part of its extended crowdfunding campaign, the studio announced today.

Initially funded via Kickstarter, Star Citizen launched its own independently managed crowdfunding campaign in October of 2012, earning more than $92 million in backer pledges in the years since. The funding campaign will continue up until the game's launch.

Read more