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Star Citizen release date still not here as crowd-funding passes $500m

The Star Citizen release date seems nowhere closer as the space simulation and trading game remains in alpha update 3.17.2 after earning $500m in crowd-funding

Star Citizen release date still not here as crowd-funding passes $500m: Mark Hamill in Star Citizen Squadron 42

The Star Citizen release date is one of gaming’s greatest mysteries, like the vanishing of Half-Life 3, the death of Silent Hill, or when we’re going to get a new Starfield gameplay trailer. But as the space simulation and trading game remains in an alpha state, courtesy of its latest update, 3.17.2, it nevertheless continues to surpass milestones, accumulating now a crowd-funding total of $500m USD.

Roberts Space Industries, the official site for Star Citizen, named after one of the in-game corporations that manufactures spaceships, maintains a running total of the funds donated to the space game, alongside the number of concurrent users. As of September 20, that total has just ticked over to a galactic $500,030,039 USD, meaning that in the almost ten years since Star Citizen first arrived on Kickstarter all the way back in October 2012, it has accrued half a billion dollars in funding.

Star Citizen release date still not here as crowd-funding passes $500m: Star Citizen website Roberts Space Industries

The game is playable, with the latest update adding a variety of features in the form of ships, locations, and new delivery missions. Nevertheless, fans are still waiting on a full release of Star Citizen, with the game and each of its updates still retaining a pre-launch “alpha” status. Alpha update 3.18 and alpha update 3.19 are scheduled to release for Star Citizen in Q3 and Q4 of 2022 respectively, and will also bring new locations, ships, and gameplay options, including additional activities for the game’s free-roaming sandbox mode. The game’s long-awaited single-player campaign, Squadron 42, which stars Mark Hamill and Gary Oldman, is still awaiting a release date.

If you can’t wait any longer for a full launch of Star Citizen, check out some of the other best MMORPGs on PC instead. You might also want to take a look at some of the best simulation games, or the best space games, including Eve Online and the much-improved No Man’s Sky.