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The company that Chris Roberts owns, Cloud Imperium Games, is having its annual CitizenCon event. At the end of the first of two days, a new release year was announced for Squadron 42. This has happened in the past, of course. The differences are that last year, the game was announced at CitizenCon to be feature-complete. And this year at Citizen-Con, a live playthrough of the Prologue was performed. The live playthrough crashed three times, though they were able to recover it in each case, and quickly get back to where the game had left off. So there are solid indicators that the game really is nearing release, and we're not just seeing an arbitrary date in the future, as appears to have been the case in the past (before massive feature-creep got involved).

And a few hours later, a playthrough of the Prologue without the crashes was posted to the Star Citizen YouTube channel -




The Prologue acts as a very long tutorial, and introduces both many of the gameplay elements (but not all - you don't get to fly during it; you're a turret gunner on a Javelin destroyer during a very big battle with the Vanduul, and have just submitted your application to the flight academy), and many of the elements of the setting. Runtime is an hour and fifteen minutes, and it includes a number of recognizable performers (Gillian Anderson, Gary Oldman, Henry Cavill, and others; but not Mark Hamill yet). Even if you've no interest in the game, the video is worth a watch purely for enjoyment of the story and spectacle.

Spoilers for the game, of course. But since this is literally the start of the game, well...

It was announced that the gameplay in the final game should take 30-40 hours. And this is Episode 1 (of at least three).


Also, CitizenCon this year is taking place in Manchester, England. As part of the event, a life-size version of the game's F7A Mk II Hornet has been assembled on the convention floor, and is on display for all of the attendees to see. Word is that the Hornet will remain even after the event ends. The Hornet's colors match those of the Hornets flying off of the Bengal-class carrier featured in the Prologue (i.e. Admiral Bishop's - played by Gary Oldman - flagship). Here's video of the fighter as it "performs an engine test" at the convention -




Enjoy!

This is the 3rd or 4th time I forgot this game existed.

Looks good though, and I'm always impressed with the loyal fanbase of Star Citizen sticking with it through the years.

I will believe it is not a scam when I see it actually released.

This game feels like it's about to be as likely to be released as Yandere Simulator is. Both make more money off promises than actually existing as a fully functional released game.

 nels1031 wrote:
This is the 3rd or 4th time I forgot this game existed.

Looks good though, and I'm always impressed with the loyal fanbase of Star Citizen sticking with it through the years.

Keep in mind that Star Citizen and Squadron 42 are separate games set in the same universe. Squadron 42 is three single-player games. It was originally intended to be a space combat sim, but has branched out a bit, as can be seen in the Prologue (where you run around in first person - something that wasn't intended in the original announcement years ago). Star Citizen is a massively multi-player game set in the same universe, iirc roughly ten years after the Battle of Vega (the battle in the SQ42 Prologue).

Many of Star Citizen's issues devolve down to trying to develop something extremely ambitious (their house engine basically renders everything in an entire star system - including what's on the ground of each planet - as a single instance) at the same time that they make it available for large numbers of people to play on simultaneously. Squadron 42, on the other hand, doesn't have many of those issues since it's a single-player game, and the developers have some control over where you can and can't go while playing the game. A player in Star Citizen can say, "Screw it, I don't feel like doing the mission right now. I'm going to go to Orison first." The player in SQ42 doesn't have that freedom, so the developers don't have to worry a player suddenly deciding to go to Odin IV when the mission says to go to Odin II. Odin IV's data only needs to be loaded if the player is being sent there. There's also a need to make sure that mechanics that work fine in a single-player experience aren't suddenly unbalanced, boring, or server destabilizing in a multi-player game.

In short, if it weren't for Star Citizen, I suspect that SQ42 would be closer to release.

Sure, the live playthrough was cool, but the crashes are a huge red flag. That doesn't give me much faith. I've seen so many release dates come and go, so I'll believe it when I see it. I just hope they actually stick to this new date.

niceyyyy wrote:
Sure, the live playthrough was cool, but the crashes are a huge red flag. That doesn't give me much faith. I've seen so many release dates come and go, so I'll believe it when I see it. I just hope they actually stick to this new date.

It's over a year out, possibly even two years away. You're seriously expecting a game never crashes when it's still that far off from release?

/smh

Eumerin wrote:

It's over a year out, possibly even two years away. You're seriously expecting a game never crashes when it's still that far off from release?

I am talking about Squadron 42, man, which will released in 2026 (assuming no further delays)