‘There’s No Actual Focus on Getting the Game Done’

One day before the yearly CitizenCon event, Tom Henderson published an expose on Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games, painting a relatively bleak picture of the game’s future. According to Henderson, CIG employees working on stuff that needed to be ready for CitizenCon were asked to work on weekends, too. After employee complaints, CIG changed the policy to allow for Sundays off, provided they had already worked 56 hours that week.

Needless to say, the mood isn’t great, and there are deep-seated issues to be found. Firstly, funds seem to have dwindled despite Star Citizen raising a record-breaking $790 million. Over a hundred jobs were cut at Cloud Imperium Games earlier this year at the Los Angeles and Austin offices, while wage increases have stopped. Meanwhile, there are lots of expenses that many feel are unnecessary, such as the huge bar located on the ninth floor of CIG’s shiny new Manchester building or the pricey custom Star Citizen furniture that decors the same office.

More importantly, though, the development is taking too long for a variety of reasons, including CIG founder and frontman Chris Roberts. A former employee told Henderson:

I’ve genuinely been sat in meetings that got derailed for 30 minutes so that the placement of objects that players are likely never to interact with could be discussed in detail. There’s just no actual focus on getting the game done.

Another added:

Sometimes the most basic features can be reviewed by Roberts half a dozen times, for it then to be scrapped or changed on the 7th review.

The much-vaunted Star Engine is also reportedly one of the reasons for the slow development of Star Citizen. As you might remember, the game was originally based on CryEngine but then moved on the Amazon Lumberyard fork. At this point, though, it has gone through so many changes and modifications that CIG developers described it as a Frankenstein of a game development tool that is unwieldy to use, to say the least.

Going back to the funding issue, Henderson says Cloud Imperium Games plans to leverage Squadron 42’s relatively close launch to fund Star Citizen and possibly Squadron 42 sequels, too. However, the insider reckons the game actually just made it to the feature complete stage, despite CIG telling fans that development stage had been reached exactly one year ago. Beyond Squadron 42, CIG plans to continue selling in-game ships at high prices, but Henderson also uncovered another potential venue: a third game that would take place in a medieval fantasy setting. Needless to say, details are scarce on this project.

CitizenCon 2024 kicks off tomorrow with the following event schedule: