What is the future of Star Citizen?

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Star Citizen is a title that has been on gamers’ radars since 2012. When Chris Roberts, creator of Wing Commander, brought his idea to crowdfunding sites in 2012. It met and exceeded the goal by millions of dollars. He posed a question to those who funded the game. Would they want the game proposed or a game that would take it to a whole new level never seen before, with now a single-player game accompanying the MMO? The vote was overwhelming for a whole new level never seen before. Almost ten years later, the game is still in Alpha and has only produced one Star System of a promised one hundred Star System.

According to Robert Space Industries website, Star Citizen website, as of September 19th, 2021, there have been 3,253,553 crowdfunding investors, aka Star Citizens, and $385,922,990 funds raised for this game. In other words, the most-funded crowdfunding effort to date.

Initially, it started was supposed to be just an MMO game, but has turned into also a single-player game called l Squadron 42. Now both are being developed at the same time. There has been a lot of delays and pitfalls in the creation of both at the same time. In many ways, Star Citizen has turned from just a game into a lot of ways a virtual world. A lot of communities, friendships, and even relationships have started because of CIG’s dream.

In recent years people have wavier if the game will ever come out. Investing has gone down from last year. According to IGN, the view of Star Citizen is in a negative light. There have been inquires by the British government.

According to Kotaku.com, “Star Citizen, the Winds of Winter of video games, has recently come under fire for misleading advertising practices, at least in the eyes of one British regulatory body.”

The numbers during the last year and this year’s Invictus Week event are down.

Morphologist, a popular streamer in the Star Citizen community, said, “In 2020, the Invictus Week brought in 80,000 new game buys vs. in 2021 only 50,000. So less than half than the previous year. Also, there was an investment of $12,000,000 in 2020 Invictus Week vs. in 2021; the investment was $11,000,000. So, the whales of current Citizens are still investing.

Recent updates have made people hopeful again. The upcoming features promised for years are coming out in mid-October in the Alpha 3.15 patch. Where the medical system, inventory system coming into fruition. Now the wait to see what CitizenCon brings to the community of Star Citizen. CitizenCon is the annual update to the community from the developers at Cloud Imperium Games, aka CIG, which is making Star Citizen.

The Citizens have hopes for CitizenCon. It will possibly make or break the people their confidence to ever see the game finished. The question is, though, what are the hopes of the Citizens? I sat down with Morphologis, who is a streamer and YouTube content creator, and SubliminaL to talk to them about their hopes for CitizenCon.

Morphologist says, “We need a date for Squadron 42. A date that they will keep. They need to bring back the confidence to the community that it is not a scam. Dates in the past for Squadron 42 have come and pasted with no game. So, a date that CIG will keep with help the community confidence in Star Citizen. If CIG gets Squadron 42 out, it will be a boom for the single-player game, and the upcoming Star Citizen MMO players are playing now in Alpha.”

Subliminal added, “I hope to see the new star system called Pyro. Yes, Pyro. We need a new place to explore. We first saw images of Pyro’s moons a year ago. With Pyro not having as many moons or planets of the Stanton system. We should have it by now or very soon. Now CIG must get the sever technology to where we can get there.

Also, I would love to see sever meshing announced and a date on it. Where no matter what sever our friends are on, we can play together. Plus, having more players in the same server will fill the void you feel now where you may not see one of the other fifty in one session since the system is extensive. More players mean more opportunities to play together or against each other.”

Stat Citizen has grown to more than a game. It’s a place to hang out with people, even with the bugs that plague the game. People have found other uses. One great example is machinima, basically a way to make a movie, short film, or even ads using what is around in the game. Some people would take hours, even days, to make a film on their adventure and stories that they come up with to go along with the universe of Star Citizen.

In conclusion, CIG has a lot to live up to this year. The fate of Squadron 42 and the MMO Star Citizen is in the balance at this year’s CitizenCon.