Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games has said Squadron 42 launches at some point in 2026.
If the game does indeed launch then, it’ll come out an incredible 14 years after CIG first launched Star Citizen’s crowdfunding drive.
During CitizenCon in Manchester, England this evening, CIG boss Chris Roberts, known for creating the Wing Commander series, took to the stage to say he was “confident” that Star Citizen’s long-awaited standalone single-player story game would release in 2026.
Roberts’ on-stage comments followed a lengthy live gameplay demo that suffered a number of crashes, bugs, and graphical problems, but did give the audience a good idea of Squadron 42’s first hour.
CIG demoed Squadron 42’s prologue, which is designed to set the stage for the player as a pilot in the sci-fi game. The demo was heavy on flashy cutscenes with CGI representations of Hollywood stars such as Gillian Anderson, Henry Cavill, Gary Oldman, and Mark Strong, mixed with on-rails turret action in a huge space battle. The demo ended with a first-person shooter segment as the alien enemy boarded the player’s ship.
“We did say we were doing it live, risking the demo gods, and they brought their wrath down on us,” Roberts said as he walked on-stage.
“There’s a lot more that goes on in Squadron 42 after that, but that sets up where you came from and from there you become a pilot and start serving on a smaller ship, the Stanton. But there’s a lot more in the game than we were showing there. It’s been a lot more stable for me when I’ve been playing these last few weeks.”
Roberts continued: “Both the team and I are confident of giving you this game in 2026. Obviously you can see it’s not going to be tomorrow, because you saw a few crashes there.
“Thank you for supporting us and allowing us to build such an ambitious game. Crashes aside, there’s probably not another game that has a prologue that has that much action. Mostly there aren’t movies that have that much action in there. Gladiator has three minutes of battle and eight minutes of prologue. This was an hour of crazy stuff.
“But thank you for allowing us to build something so amazing, and I can’t wait for you all to be able to play it in the moderate future.”
Star Citizen is considered one of the most controversial projects in all video games. Over the 12 years since its crowdfunding drive began, Star Citizen has been called many things including a scam by those who wonder whether it will ever properly launch. Its virtual space ships, some of which cost hundreds of dollars, are often the focus of criticism.
Indeed, Star Citizen has now raised over $729 million according to figures from CIG. The developer makes revenue publicly available on its website, which at the time of this article’s publication shows Star Citizen has raised $729,151,801. CIG calls this money “funds raised.”
In March this year, CIG began talking about Star Citizen’s 1.0 launch being within sight, although there’s still no release window. 1.0, Roberts has said, “is what we consider the features and content set to represent ‘commercial’ release.” As it stands, Star Citizen is still in Alpha.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.