I’m trying to hold onto the promise and positivity of the planetary exploration footage shown at CitizenCon months back. Chris Roberts’ $85 million-and-counting opus looked tangible then – a sprawling sim reminiscent of the ambitious PC games made at Origin Systems.
But complications since have highlighted just how far we are from getting our space visa applications approved. Cloud Imperium were moved to answer a dozen Star Citizen community concerns, after the departure of the game’s executive producer and delay of its FPS Star Marine module.
That last one sounded particularly severe as Roberts and co. prepped reworks to backend architecture – but it transpires Star Citizen’s shooter component might not be so distant as all that.
“When we showed [Star Marine] at PAX East, we said we hoped it was going to be out sometime in April,” began Roberts in a Gamers Nexus interview published at the weekend. “But ‘don’t hold me to that’ was what I actually said.”
“We did the [blog] update in May, and obviously people have been waiting a long time for it. A large amount of the company, especially now, has been working on it.”
Roberts has put the new Cloud Imperium Frankfurt office to work on the module. There’s plenty of CryEngine expertise there, in the city where Far Cry was born.
The plan now is to release a version of Star Marine on the Public Test Universe shortly after Gamescom, which happens in early August.
“We didn’t want to give a date because, well, we sort of don’t want to get burnt by that,” said Roberts. “In reality, we’re probably weeks off. We’re really talking about people getting to play FPS in a matter of 3, 4, maybe 5 weeks.”
Roberts has been helping out with the code himself from his officer’s chair on the bridge, so it’s seemingly all hands on deck at this stage. Which prospective chunk of Star Citizen is most important to you?
Meanwhile,Derek Smart is refusing to take his refunded $250 Star Citizen pledge lying down.