Few games have ever been in development as long as Star Citizen has, with its 12-years-and-counting cycle. But Star Citizen’s standalone spin-off, Squadron 42, comes close with 10 years since the game was announced. At this year’s CitizenCon 2954, Cloud Imperium stopped short of saying that Squadron 42 will have a definite release date in 2026. But Cloud Imperium CEO Chris Roberts did say that he was “confident” it would be released in two years.
To back up his claim, Roberts presented an hour-long gameplay demo of Squadron 42, which had a few crashes along the way. But it did show off the Wing Commander-inspired gameplay and intense sci-fi action. There are also plenty of cutscenes in the video.
A lot of celebrity talent has lent their voices and likenesses to the game, including Wing Commander star–and Star Wars icon–Mark Hamill, as well as Gary Oldman, Andy Serkis, Henry Cavill, Gillian Anderson, Mark Strong, Jack Huston, Ben Mendelsohn, and more. Cloud Imperium certainly had the budget to attract that A-list talent, since Squadron 42 and Star Citizen have raised over $700 million in crowdfunding since 2012.
Prior to CitizenCon 2954, Cloud Imperium reportedly forced its employees into a seven-day-a-week crunch-style schedule to make its deadlines for the convention. Even with that extra effort, the demo had a buggy performance, and Roberts apologized for the crashes. Squadron 42 was announced as “feature-complete” at last year’s CitizenCon, but clearly a lot of work remains to be done.
As for Star Citizen, Cloud Imperium’s flagship title is still in alpha, with no projected release date in sight. However, Cloud Imperium did offer a massive $48,000 bundle with every ship in the game earlier this year. Hopefully someday, players will get a full game to go along with all of those ships.