Star Citizen is finally pushing towards the “finish line”

Star Citizen is pushing towards the “finish line”.

That’s according to Cloud Imperium Games’ CEO, Chris Roberts, who recently teased that a decade and $670m later, Star Citizen may finally emerge from alpha testing and move into a 1.0 release.

“After many hard years of work towards a goal many thought was impossible, we are on the cusp of delivering one of the final pieces of technology that will enable a connected, shared universe that thousands of people can experience together at the same time,” Roberts explained in his latest Letter from the Chairman update (thanks, PC Gamer).

“While we recognise that there is no definitive finish line in an online MMO, and that we will always be adding new features and content for many, many years to come, Star Citizen 1.0 is what we consider the features and content set to represent ‘commercial’ release,” Roberts added.

“This means that the game is welcoming to new players, stable, and polished with enough gameplay and content to engage players continuously. In other words, it is no longer Alpha or Early Access.

“Much like we planned out Squadron 42’s drive to Feature Complete and the upcoming Content Complete status, we spent significant time looking at what Star Citizen 1.0 means and what it would take to get there.”

Roberts explained that CI’s new server meshing tech permits players to travel between servers and it is this that is helping get Star Citizen to its “finish line”, although – as you may perhaps expect – quite when that’ll be exactly remains unclear. Roberts did say, however, that “2023 marked the beginning of a transformative chapter for Cloud Imperium”, and “all of this points towards 2024 being our biggest and best year yet in the universe of Star Citizen”. So watch this space – literally, in this case.

We recently reported that Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games had suffered layoffs amid unrest due to relocation and accusations of a “highly toxic company”.

Game director Todd Papy left the studio last month, along with lead producer Jake Ross, level designer Dane Kubicka, Austin QA lead Vincent Sinatra, and Austin senior QA analyst Andrew Rexroth. Former producer Annie Bouffard shared on LinkedIn that she had resigned from a “highly toxic company” and claimed she was “gaslighted” when she expressed concern about potential layoffs.

Cloud Imperium Games responded to Eurogamer confirming “some minor staffing changes” due to a return to office work, citing it was “part of our normal processes” to “regularly look for ways to make our operations more efficient, which can include restructuring”.

Interestingly, Roberts did comment on Papy’s departure in the update. Papy reportedly had to move back to the US from the UK for family reasons, and Roberts “determined” that CI “cannot afford to have this role remote from the main Manchester team”.