Star Citizen Hits $1 Billion in Funding, Reveals Odin Battlecruiser

• Star Citizen has passed $1 billion in crowdfunding from 6.5 million backers despite still being in alpha.
• Cloud Imperium Games unveiled the Odin battlecruiser, a new concept ship not yet playable in-game.
• Chris Roberts says companion game Squadron 42 is nearing completion.

Star Citizen, the sci-fi MMO that started development in 2012, has now reached $1 billion in lifetime funding, despite still not having a proper release date. Over 6.5 million people have pledged their support for Star Citizen, and while the game is technically in early access, it is playable  (it’s also available to play for free through May 27, on PC – there are currently no plans for it to appear on consoles).

Star Citizen is being developed and published by Cloud Imperium Games, the studio founded by Chris Roberts, the creator of cult 90s game Wing Commander. Together with his wife Sandi, Roberts has been rolling out a steady stream of devlogs and updates for years, with the most recent being the Odin battlecruiser. 

“The Anvil Odin is being offered for the first time as a limited vehicle concept pledge,” Cloud Imperium Games said in a recent post on the crowdfunding site, Robert Space Industries. “This means that the vehicle is in development, but it is not yet ready to play in Star Citizen. It will be available as playable content in a later patch. If you pledge towards an Anvil Odin, you will also receive a loaner vehicle for use in Star Citizen until such time as the Anvil Odin is included in-game.”

“We offer pledge ships to help fund Star Citizen’s development,” the studio clarified. “These ships will be available for in-game credits and/or will be otherwise earnable through play in the final universe. They are not required to start or succeed at the game.”

DefenseCon 2956

While the Odin isn’t playable yet, there are over 100 vehicles that are. Gamers interested in checking these out, or who just want to see what the game is like at the moment, can do so via the latest DefenseCon event. This is a pretty good example of what the game’s community and overall ethos is like, as it’s not a real-world convention, but rather an in-game one. 

DefenseCon was set up by the in-universe manufacturer Drake Interplanetary to showcase affordable, rugged ships for everyday pilots and militias. The first event was held in 2950 (in-game; 2020 in the real world), with the main selling point for players being that they can try out a ton of spaceships for free. 

Play Your Part

Pretty much everything players can take for a test flight during DefenseCon 2956 is the result of crowdfunding. From the beginning, Cloud Imperium has made it clear that all funds go directly into game development, and the Roberts have backed this up with regular updates and an overall transparency that’s uncommon in game development.

“I think that the goal that everybody is supporting is pretty ambitious and huge, but also a pretty exciting one,” Chris Roberts told Variety. “A lot of people want to spend time adventuring out in the virtual world of something that’s like ‘Star Citizen,’ and that’s really what’s helped get us to where we are, because the dream [is] so big that it’s something that you don’t get in any other other game.”

“It’s not something that would be able to be done under a traditional big game publisher funding it, or private equity,” he added. “They usually wouldn’t have the time and the patience, but with what we’re doing, people just want to see the biggest, best world possible, and they love the idea of the dream.”

A lot of gamers have bought into the dream already; aside from the 6,546,057 people who have already pledged a current total of $1,004,621,155, Star Citizen had an estimated 74,616 players over the last month – not as huge as it could be, but still a decent number given that the game has just reached the Alpha 4.8 stage. 

One of the main concerns surrounding Cloud Imperium Games is whether Star Citizen will ever see a proper 1.0 release; it’s become a running joke that Star Citizen will be in early access until the heat death of the universe. 

“I fully believe that we’ve still got a long time, even after we’ve got what we call 1.0 out, and we’re not considering an alpha anymore, that we’ll be adding and building on the universe and the world,” said Chris Roberts. “And it will be a place for people to adventure together and meet up together and have fun together. Not too different than, say, ‘World of Warcraft,’ which has been going on for 20-plus years after it released.”

Squadron 42

Part of the reason development on Star Citizen is taking so long to reach a concrete 1.0 release is due to Cloud Imperium also working on Squadron 42. This is being billed by Roberts as an “authored single-player story” set in the same universe as Star Citizen, and it has AAA acting talent involved including Mark Hamill, Henry Cavill, and Gary Oldman.

“My pitch is, basically, you’re the star of this huge blockbuster event movie, and it seamlessly goes between the storytelling and the cinematic moments to you being in control and first person and pass it, moving through the story, and has a level of detail and scale and scope that you don’t normally see in a game,” he said. 

Roberts has also said how Cloud Imperium Games (which numbers over 1,000 staff spread across Austin, Frankfurt, and Montreal) is using Star Citizen to see what does and doesn’t work, gameplay and mechanics-wise, so it can then put the things that do work into Squadron 42. 

“We’re right at the end now, we’re in the closing stages and it’s coming together really well. I’ve been very lucky as a creative because I’ve had the ability to take the time and have the funding to really do it.”

“And so the vision that’s being delivered is really my imagination, my vision from the beginning, and that’s not something you always get the chance to do. So I’m pretty grateful for that, and I’m also very excited for people on the outside to experience it.”