CIG May Actually Complete Development Of Squadron 42 And Star Citizen

Over the weekend I watched bits and pieces of Citizen Con 2953, Cloud Imperium Games' annual fan convention. Players expected some big news due to the event running for two days for the first time. They were not disappointed. Even as someone who has watched the development of Squadron 42 and Star Citizen for years, I knew the news was big.

First, the Squadron 42 news. The single player sci-fi RPG is now feature complete. What does feature complete mean in a video game sense? I was a little surprised to find out "feature complete" means the game has now entered alpha.

Alpha: The game is “feature complete” meaning the main features have all been added and the game is fully playable from start to finish. Some elements, such as art assets may still need to be added, but controls and functionality should be working properly. The QA testers will be making sure everything is running seamlessly and reporting errors back to the team.

In other words, don't expect the game to launch in 2024. I do expect CIG to announce some sort of launch window at the next Citizen Con, probably for sometime in 2025. Below is the SQ42 trailer that debuted yesterday.

The big news for Star Citizen is that the dev team may have finally solved the last major technical hurdle to completing the game: server meshing. I would urge players not to get too excited as the solution came together three weeks ago. But CIG gave a live demonstration with the feature working off of someone's laptop. The clip below is from the channel of YouTube creator SaltEMike, someone who doesn't automatically give CIG the benefit of the doubt.

I expect years of development ahead to make server meshing work. Even then, Star Citizen will never rival EVE Online for the size of its space battles. But from my research the maximum number of players Cry Engine can handle is about 100. If CIG can handle 500 player fights, then I will tip my hat to them.

The announcements at Citizen Con don't indicate a launch of a finished game next year. With the additional time needed for development, especially for Star Citizen, funding could falter and the games never reach the market in a finished state. But, assuming CIG did not lie (remember sandworms anyone?) the development of both the single player and multi-player games are making significant progress.