Star Citizen - beyond the space combat game

STAR CITIZEN

Release date: This year

Platform: PC

Star Citizen is the spiritual successor of my childhood favourite space simulation game, Wing Commander.

Developed by Chris Roberts, who created Wing Commander, Star Citizen enjoyed an immensely successful Kickstarter campaign (I'm one of the backers) raising US$6.2 million (S$9 million) in 2012.

It continues to receive fans' funding, with over US$140 million raised so far. But, after four years, the game has not yet been launched.

This is partly due to Mr Roberts' ambitious plans. Instead of just a space combat game, Star Citizen consists of a persistent multiplayer universe for dogfighting, trading and mining with your spacecraft.

It also has a story-based single-player campaign known as Squadron 42 and a first-person shooter game called Star Marine.

I am most excited about Squadron 42, as Mark Hamill (of Star Wars fame and who appeared in Wing Commander) and Gillian Anderson (of X-files) will be starring in the game.

However, just last month, Mr Roberts announced the switching of the game engine.

I hope this change will not affect the development schedule, as it is really long overdue.

I really hope this year will see the launch of at least Squadron 42.

Trevor Tan

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on January 04, 2017, with the headline Star Citizen - beyond the space combat game. Subscribe