The world's most expensive video game has gotten even richer. Star Citizen's funding yesterday crossed $1 billion, making it the first video game in history to - formally - accomplish the feat.
Star Citizen commenced development in 2011 and was revealed to the public via a Kickstarter campaign in the autumn of 2012. The initial Kickstarter campaign drew in $2 million, but Cloud Imperium Games kept their own crowdfunding page open and allowed fans to directly back the game in return for in-game rewards like new ships. Funding reaching $65 million in late 2014, $127 million in September 2016 and $500 million in September 2022.
Star Citizen is a massive, online space simulator video game designed by Chris Roberts, the noted British creator of video games like the Wing Commander, Privateer and Freelancer series, as well as having worked in the movie industry. Roberts' funding scheme has allowed him to pursue the space game of his dreams, unencumbered by stifling corporate oversight, release windows, marketing synergies or - his harsher critics might say - common sense and disciplined design.
The game, originally mooted as a tight trade/combat experience similar to Elite: Dangerous or the X series, has since sprawled to a huge behemoth of a title where players can walk around densely-populated cities with an ingame avatar that can also pilot multiple ships, crew larger vessels, take part in boarding actions or engage in zero-gee combat. A recent common saying is that Star Citizen is actually trying to be the game that Bethesda's Starfield promised it was going to be but fell short. It's also showing why that's incredibly difficult, complex and expensive (Star Citizen has easily raised at least four times Starfield's production budget, probably more).
Star Citizen can actually be played right now as an early build which shows a lot that is extremely impressive has been accomplished, but a lot remains to be done in terms of optimisation, bug-fixing and creating a less daunting introduction to the game.
The main focus of Cloud Imperium Games is now releasing Star Citizen's single-player component, Squadron 42, a story-driven space opera epic featuring actors like Gillian Anderson, Mark Hamill and Gary Oldman. Squadron 42, which has been helmed by Chris's brother Erin (noted for StarLancer and the various Lego video games). CIG is hoping to release Squadron 42, which they declared feature-complete three years ago, in the near(ish) future.
Star Citizen is now the most expensive video game ever made - at least officially - and has been in continuous development almost the longest, with only Beyond Good & Evil 2 (officially announced in 2008, and apparently in development before that, with recent updates confirming the game is still being worked on) shading it. Half-Life 3 has technically been in development longer, but that game was internally cancelled and later remounted several times as two distinct projects (Half-Life 2: Episode Three and now Half-Life 3).
The only game to challenge Star Citizen's budget is Grand Theft Auto VI, which has been in development at Rockstar Games since around 2018. The game has a much larger, international staff with a development budget at least in the high hundreds of millions. Some industry analysts have suggested that with marketing included, the game will likely top $2 billion in total costs, though others think this is too high. GTAVI is currently scheduled for release on 19 November this year.
No release date has been set for Star Citizen or its Squadron 42 component, though apparently the hope is the latter launches before the end of 2027 (apparently a 2026 release date has been nixed by GTAVI's impending arrival).
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