Star Citizen - Impressions @ Polygon

Polygon discovered Star Citizen and gave their impression along with a brief overview of the game's state. (some links removed below)

Star Citizen still doesn’t live up to its promise, and players don’t care

A decade in, development’s still trucking along

It’s 2022, and I just got into Star Citizen. An uninitiated spacefarer might be surprised at how much there is to explore.

It all started when a friend purchased starter packs for me and my friends. Despite being a skeptic who has largely been disinterested in the game, I was surprised to find a galaxy I could actually explore. Spending a few hours in the world of Star Citizen is intriguing, breathtaking, and frustrating all at once. I found myself taking time to just stop and watch advertisements for fictional mercenary companies, or sitting and bathing in the neon glow of a futuristic plaza. It is a game that is far more advanced than many people think, despite falling short in many respects.

Many people aren’t aware of how far Star Citizen has come — which makes sense, as it has so far still to go. It is, in fact, not actually a singular game but a franchise consisting of a persistent universe (PU) and an unreleased single-player campaign game called Squadron 42 that still doesn’t have a release date (and hasn’t since 2016).

The game has been infamous for its slow and delayed development cycle; for many people, the title has become just a meme, and its harshest critics online have even claimed the game is a “scam”. As the years have passed, the gap between those who are following Star Citizen and those who are disinterested has grown. If you’ve given up — or never boarded the hype train — then you might only know about Star Citizen from snarky headlines like “CIG reels back Star Citizen’s roadmap because players ‘interpret anything on the release view as a promise’” or “Star Citizen dev defends missing roadmap feature by 4 years.” It’s easy to doubt whether the game is even playable — after all, even though it’s been nearly a decade, the developers are still discussing features as basic as, er, loot.

Yet the game is not lacking in resources. The game’s fundraising campaign continually breaks records, even as it adds on deep-pocketed investors. Fans and investors bought into Star Citizen’s big promise: it’s a “forever game” consisting of a massive sci-fi universe filled with players, each on their own individual journeys. Roberts Space Industries (RSI) and Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) have together raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the development of Star Citizen, which has gone towards game development, in-game cinematics, voice work and motion-capture for characters in the campaign from celebrities like Mark Hamill (and Gillian Anderson, and Andy Serkis, and on and on), and lavish in-universe commercials showing off how neat certain ships are.

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