Squadron 42, Star Citizen's single-player campaign, gets new trailer at CitizenCon 2018

Cloud Imperium Games closed out CitizenCon 2018, their biggest one yet, with the Road to Release chat that gave attendees a look at the next stages for Star Citizen. The development studio has regularly kept the conversation open about the game's development, but, this time, is seems like updates are finally being framed around the 1.0 release. To celebrate this, the team showed off a new trailer for the ever illusive single-player campaign Squadron 42.

[The 10th Rider]

They said the last technical hurdle for the single player is done with and being incorporated in to the game as the next step. The roadmap for single-player, all the way up to release, will be put out during their Holiday stream in December.

I'm honestly not too interested in the online portion, but the single-player looks awesome. It's got possible the most loaded cast of any video game ever and they worked with Imaginarium Studios for motion capture I believe, run by Andy Serkis.

EDIT: Obviously the online might have some technical hurdles for consoles still, but if at all possible I hope they at least put Squadron 42 on PS5/Xbox 2.

[ArchangelMike]

All they need to regain a lot of trust from sceptical community members is to announce a release date... and stick to it.

[The 10th Rider]

Yeah, putting out the first part of Squadron 42 in the first half of next year and having it be *good* would go a long way in improving their public image.

[nyu1]

Not really.

They cannot predict whether or not they can hit a release date, especially if they're trying to go for this insane quality. They'll release a roadmap, and people can just take that for what it is. If we just take the roadmap for what it is we won't have false hopes and whatnot.

Giving us a detailed roadmap is the best option imo.

[Skull521]

They needed to be held accountable for their schedules. Sure games face delays but this has been unprecedented. Instead people just kept throwing money at them, which as an original investor has irritated me. Release the game, crowd fund new features. Instead it’s been constantly throw money at a never ending tech demo.

[ArchangelMike]

I have to admit that, I'm really apprehensive of being excited for this game. The cinematics look phenomenal, and they've definitely brought out to gallery of cast members. However, it's usually the case that all the individual parts might seem great during development, but at often times they struggle to come together in the end as a cohesive whole. I loved my space sims Wing Commander, Privateer, X-Wing vs Tie Fighter etc etc back in the good old OLD days, so I'm very cautiously optimistic for this one. As we know all too well, big budgets don't always translate into great games!

[I_am_Batman]

It's one of the highest budgets in video game history. It takes a very experienced director & team to be able to handle such a project (and even then there are no guarantees). I assume that they've bit off more than they can chew. Stuff like the Legatus Pack (>$20.000 to unlock everything in the game) make me think that they haven't managed their finances properly or are just trying to be greedy and take advantage of some whales.

Squadron 42 was originally supposed to be released in 2014. After they weren't able to hit that date they pushed out a new date for 2017. Now it's the end of 2018 and they still haven't even released episode 1 (episode 2 and 3 are supposed to come out later). Sure this trailer looks great (the graphics are phenomenal) but it is obvious that they are constantly unable to hit their goals.

This was supposed to be the AAA PC exclusive game that blows everything else out of the water. With new consoles on the horizon and Star Citizen still not having a release date yet I get the feeling that their time is running out to make the splash that they intended to make.

[ArchangelMike]

^^My thoughts exactly. Personally, I think the project will not be able to make as much money post release as it does pre release. There is now little incentive to release the full game, not least because the longer it's in development the less graphical impact it will have upon release.

I think Chris Roberts knows this, and I do believe he grossly underestimated contemporary game development as opposed to game development in the mid 90's. I'm not sure the project can deliver on its promises. It's almost become too big not to fail.

[nyu1]

"Squadron 42 was originally supposed to be released in 2014."

That game was also no where near the scale, scope, complexity and the production value of the one you see now. I'm not saying scope creep shouldn't be limited, but we can't just compare to the 2014 release date without taking this fact into consideration.

[PrinceOfAnger]

Graphics king! nothing on consoles can beat this game technically ,this is all in-game.

[ArchangelMike]

Well the longer the game is in development the further back it falls from the graphical cutting edge. Next gen consoles are around the corner, and this game might still not be out in the next 5years I.e. after n3xt gen 🤔

[PrinceOfAnger]

Maybe it will be released in 3 years, could be wrong

[nyu1]

SQ42 will be released next year or year after imo.

People have been saying it will be outdated graphically for a long time. However, the thing is that they've continously pushed and improved the graphics and technical stuff. Heck, it's only going to get better.

Graphics are one thing I am not worried about. It's everything else...

[spicelicka]

lmao 80% of PC's can't run this game either. Love how people try to compare $2000 computers to $300 consoles which are literally also computers...

[The 10th Rider]

You don't need a $2000 computer to run Star Citizen. The only thing it requires that the average Steam user doesn't necessarily have is greater than 8GB of ram. Other than that you can run it with the latest I3 ($125 or so) and a RX 570 4gb (around $200).

EDIT: Here you go, in a few minutes I'm able to whip up a $760 build. That's including Windows, the wireless adapter, and an SSD instead of an HDD. It'd have no problems running Star Citizen. https://pcpartpicker.com/li...

[nyu1]

I mean, that is the point. With better hardware, you can push more, especially with the better CPUs.

That said, you certainly don't need a $2000 PC. SQ42 should run well on any decent gaming PC. I ran the PU with an offline hack and it was very smooth on my 1060 gtx (laptop). This game is quite well optimized on the GPU side, and I think the graphics team are very good on this project. Optimization is a priority for them.

Hopefully they'll have detailed graphics options to play with.

[spicelicka]

@The 10th Rider

$760. You can buy an XB1/PS4 for $200, PRO/XB1X for $400. It's still almost double the price of the most expensive console.

Point is "PC" is not one platform. Every console of the same type will run every game the same way. PC's range from $3000 rigs that can run things better than anything, to $200 laptops that can barely run League of legends. To claim a win for PC's over an unreleased game that the majority of PC's can't run is like saying a rocket engine is better than a car engine.

[TekoIie]

@spicelika

"$760. You can buy an XB1/PS4 for $200, PRO/XB1X for $400. It's still almost double the price of the most expensive console."

You mean those expensive consoles people upgraded to lol? The same ones that demand you shell out for access to online MP? Doesn't look quite as cheap as you're claiming when you look just a little deeper.

[nyu1]

I'm sure some exclusives can compete on some aspects, but what is impressive is that this is all in a game world with huge scope and complexity. Remember that it's not set up on rails like maybe COD or something. You can fly your ship and explore, manually fly down to planet surfaces, get out etc. It's all simulated. That's going to be the really impressive part. To be able to seamlessly fly your ship into another ship, get out, and then interact with characters of this quality, all in-game.

Only problem is how much longer is this going to take ? xD

I predict that they will aim for next year but it will get delayed. :/

[The 10th Rider]

I think single-player will start to hit next-year. (We should find out for sure in December). The online persistent universe part is going to take a lot longer though. From the roadmap presentation they had last night I would say there's about 2-3 years left and then they will have a coherent game, enough to officially release, but they will still be tweaking and adding things for longer than that.

[PrinceOfAnger]

@Nyu1

Yes it will get better and they will keep improving on it ,and especially if the game gets ray tracing support , don't think next gen consoles will have that
This game is going to be the best looking Game of all time ,no doubt about this

[darKsoul3]

This looks insane!

[fluxmulder]

Squadron 42, the game that was supposed to be out in 2015: https://www.youtube.com/wat...

[nyu1]

True but you have to admit the quality has gone up by leagues. A lot of people won't agree, but I'm happy they increased scope and went big with it.

Still completely true though, the game was supposed to be out much earlier.

[TekoIie]

The game that wasn't even planned to become what it has you mean? You can absolutely criticise the bad timing the development has had but don't pretend any AAA Devs could pull off this product without a publisher dumbing it down to quickly release it.

[--bienio--]

Oki now I’m interested.

[Casepb]

Oh man this looks all kinds of awesome. I really enjoyed Infinite Warfare SP so I'd definitely buy this as a single player stand alone deal.

[gangsta_red]

With all the actors this is more like a big summer blockbuster movie than a game. But I am all for emotional, story driven, triple A, single player experiences. It'll be a celebration when this game actually drops.

[saviboy]

I completely forgot about this game. I can't believe it's still not out...