Star Citizen's off-shoot Squadron 42 probably won't make 2017 either
This story is getting Oldman.
Last year we waited and waited to hear whether Squadron 42, the single-player and standalone Star Citizen story experience with actors like Gary Oldman in, would be released in 2016, until eventually Cloud Imperium said no, it wouldn't be. Then we started waiting and waiting for a 2017 release instead.
With the CitizenCon event on the horizon for end of October, expectations of a Squadron 42 announcement, or showing, were high. But over the weekend, Cloud Imperium announced Squadron 42 would not be at CitizenCon. Instead it will only be shown during the Holiday Livestream in December, which suggests Squadron 42 will miss 2017 as well.
"Squadron 42 will be the focus of our Holiday Livestream in December, where we will preview some gameplay and share our roadmap for its completion," wrote Chris Roberts.
"We have a large team working on Squadron 42 and we've been making good progress towards achieving my goal to take the Wing Commander style narrative experience to the next level, with first-person gameplay that moves between foot, vehicles and incredible locations all rendered with a fluidity and quality that you normally only see in pre-rendered cinematic scenes. I am confident it is going to be worth the wait; a game that can hold its own with any other triple-A story game.
"I am excited to show you some of this in December."
This will not shock anyone. Not only do dates related to Star Citizen tend to drift, the focus of Cloud Imperium has been on Star Citizen alpha build 3.0 for a while. The focus is even more intense right now, with alpha build 3.0 in the hands of some testers, and feverishly being prepared for public release which, for all intents and purposes, is Star Citizen's Early Access release.
Whether that public release will happen this year, however, no one knows. A report on the Star Citizen subreddit made it sound as though progression was slow and people certainly shouldn't expect a November release.
Perhaps we'll hear a bit more at CitizenCon, Friday 27th October, during the keynote address, which starts 9pm CEST.