Star Citizen has now raised more than a quarter billion dollars in funding, according to figures updated on its official site and shared to its subreddit. The milestone hits a week after CitizenCon and at the end of what is on track to be the game’s most profitable year to date.
At the time of this writing, Roberts Space Industries reported a total of $250,456,659 (£193.7 million) in total funds raised from 2,447,236 individual Star Citizens. The project began 2019 having raised about $213.4 million, and over the course of this year has pulled in nearly $37 million more.
It’s an astonishing sum of money to have raised through backer support, particularly for a game that is still heavily in development. However, founder Chris Roberts and company showed off more of what they’ve been working on during Cloud Imperium Games’ annual CitizenCon event last week in Manchester.
The on-stage demo included a playthrough of a full stealth mission, showing off the new arctic planet of microTech, coming in Alpha 3.8, and its primary spaceport New Babbage. In it, the player moves seamlessly from walking through high-tech buildings on foot to riding in a local shuttle, eventually sneaking into a base and making an escape in a wheeled rover that is driven into the hold of a getaway starship.
Most of Star Citizen’s funding since the conclusion of its Kickstarter campaign has been through ‘pledges’ made by backers in exchange for in-game ships. These start out with ‘starter packs’ for ships like the Mustang Alpha and Aurora MR at $45, but CIG offers increasingly pricey packages on larger and more versatile spacecraft designs. The Anvil Carrack, a long-distance exploration ship with room for multiple crew members, costs $500, and the Hammerhead heavy gunship goes for $725.
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Players who buy in can also upgrade their ships, using the real-world price of a ship they’ve already purchased as trade-in value toward a more lavish model.
Roberts Space Industries plans to release Star Citizen Alpha 3.8 some time this month, and it is currently running a free-fly event, giving non-backers the chance to fly each ship on the roster. That event will conclude December 5.