Star Citizen’s Single-Player Squadron 42 Shows Improved Mark Hamill Character Model in Comparison

Mark Hamill's character model in Star Citizen's single-player campaign Squadron 42 shows massive improvements from less than a year ago.

[ArchangelMike]

How many years has this game actually been in development now? To be fair though Red Dead 2 has been in development for 8 years, Final Fantasy XV took 10 years, and Duke Nuke Forever took 15 years to get it out the door. (The obvious difference with these games is that they weren't raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from kickstarter backers). But I guess it means we can allow another 8 years before we start to get really worried, that this might be a scam (what happpens if the project suddenly gets cancelled?).

[fluxmulder]

2011 to 2018, so approaching 8 years. The difference between the games you listed and Star Citizen, is that those games actually RELEASED after all those years in development. Almost 8 years in, and all Star Citizen has to show for it is one barely finished star system (of the promised 100), no core gameplay loops, and broken unoptimized performance even on a monster PC. Oh, and no release date. And they're still asking for more money, as if $200 million wasn't enough. They can't make this game, and yet they persist with the lie that they can. That alone is enough to make it a scam.

[nyu1]

2011 was just the kickstarter pitch by a handful. Little more than a visual proof of concept. The crowdfunding was in 2012. They started building the company in 2013 and started ramping up from there. IMO it's a little dishonest to count 2011 and 2012 in the context of these comparisons to other games. Or atleast mention these details if you do.

If you're comparing to normal AAA projects, 6 years makes more sense. Still a very long time though. Most studios would have given you a game in that time.

As for your complaints, it's not surprising people are fed up. To put it simply, they allowed a crap ton of scope creep, more than they should have. They continuously raised production values as well. Essentially they're trying to have their cake and eat it. The fact is they need funding to carry on with the game because of how crazy big they've gone with it.

That said, from what progress I can see on the PU, I predict that this will become something special, even if they can't deliver everything in their stretch goals. It's taking much longer than anyone wanted, and has required selling crazy expensive ship jpegs to fund it, but still. Give devs time, money and the freedom to push boundaries, and you will get some awesome results.

[Moe-Gunz]

@nyu1

Incorrect. Just like in the film industry, we count pre-production, production, and post production as the development of a project. Anything you do that supports the birth of something is apart of its development. If they started pitching and building a concept in 2011 that counts. Sounds like an attempt to water down the massive amount of time it is taking to finish this game.

[Tech5]

yeah the money isn't going to be refunded because actors - Mark hamill, Mark Strong, Gary oldman and gillian anderson were already paid for genius. high paid actors don't work for free.

[Sieden]

They started with a half dozen developers and your wondering why 2 AAA projects aren't complete yet?
For perspective, RDR2 is releasing this month from a fully staffed studio with a mature game engine who had a pre-production team working on it since before RDR1 released 8.5 years ago.

[thatguyhayat]

Difference is they didnt ask us to fund the game, deny refunds and make us pay for a live gameplay on twitch.

[Smitty2020]

I feel more sorry for the people that donated money if it’s a scam

[rainslacker]

All those games got released though. i'm dubious on if this game will ever see an actual release date. At any time, I expect some new tangent on the part of Roberts to go into full development, leaving much of the already currently finished work in a perpetual early access beta.

Duke Nuken went through several iterations also. It wasn't one continuous development process.

[spicelicka]

Important thing to consider is that RDR2 was announced in 2016, if it's releasing two years after announcement it doesn't matter how many years it was in development. This game was announced in 2014 I think and has no release date in sight.

[Crazyglues]

The 2018 looks amazing, wow, really surprised how good it's looking, is that the cryengine Amazon Lumberyard...? Amazing

[Abriael]

It's Lumberyard, which is a derivate of Cryengine.

[nyu1]

Amazon Lumberyard, with a ton of modifications and custom technology to support all the fancy stuff they're doing.

[Hugodastrevas]

Scam Citizen

[x800]

who cares about this shitty game anymore? oh look the character can fart in the wind..now send us some money oh and dont forget to spend money in-game this game is gonna milk your wallet.

[Shikoku]

Roberts needs removed so this thing can actually have some stable milestones and hit targets with him in charge it isnt going to really go anywhere the project is already so far behind I doubt they ever finish it.

[rainslacker]

Chris Roberts was always one of my favorite developers. A game that was essentially a spiritual successor to Wing Commander seemed like it would have so much promise after the way the series was abandoned by EA after they brought Origin. Felt similar about the Ultima series, which was amazing for its time.

That being said, I question if Roberts really is capable of managing a team. he obviously knows game design, but his production skills in terms of managing a product are severely lacking, and in the case of Star Citizen, he keeps adding features to a game before he even gets the core game ready to implement them.

I don't think he needs to be removed, but he needs to be managed. Something unlikely to happen since he owns the company.

[darthv72]

Wing commander was such a good series. I guess the movie really didnt help things but I didnt hate it... it just wasnt the Wing Commander i was used to seeing (namely 3, 4 and Prophecy).

[Shikoku]

He is the problem and his "management style" or lack there of is one of the problems this game has. I really think this company is going to go bankrupty before this game sees completion.

[rainslacker]

I didn't hate the movie. It did some things right, but tried to be too hollywood...although Roberts seemed to be doing that with the games anyways.

@Shikoku

I don't know if he mismanages, I just think he can't focus his attention. He's too easily distracted by new ideas, and he initiates those ideas before he has his core game established. Star Citizen is a perfect example of feature creep, but instead of just features, he's adding in full game modes, and huge expansive campaigns.

I dunno if they'll go bankrupt. They have accumulated enough money to operate indefinitely. I do think that Roberts has squandered a lot of the resources that the backers have given him though. Too much money spent on the wrong things, and too much focus on trying to deliver the most technically impressive game, instead of just a quality game.

[SamPao]

I think it would be the best for the games to have roberts figure it all out and then remove him for somebody that puts some limits on the game :D like in freelancer, such a great game. If roberts would have been on the project the game would not have been out by now hahaha :D

I may be wrong, just saying. Freelancer was amazing even without everything they wanted to put in.

[Redlife2g]

Mark Hamill will be dead by the time this comes out.. Poor guy won't be able to see all of his hard work