It is estimated that ‘GTA V’ had a budget of around $265 million, about $100 million less than ‘Avengers: Endgame’ ($356 million). The jewel in Rockstar’s crown, at the expense of ‘GTA VI’ coming out next year, is one of the most expensive games in history along with ‘Horizon Forbidden West’ (212 million in development alone) and ‘The Last of Us: Part 2’ (220 million), but none, absolutely none, comes even remotely close to the most expensive game in history.
One that has been in development for 12 years, that has no release date and that this week exceeded 750 million dollars raised via crowdfunding. His name: ‘Star Citizen’.
where does it come from. We have to go back to 2011. It was that year when Chris Roberts, creator of the ‘Wing Commander’ saga, founded the Cloud Imperium Games studio with Ortwin Freyermuth. Their proposal: a massively multiplayer online space simulator of epic proportions that would be funded by players. It would be a kind of MMO and, as such, it would have its main plot for a single player and the massive part. That was the case until 2016, but then it was announced that this game, called ‘Star Citizen’, would be divided into two: on the one hand there would be ‘Star Citizen’ (the MMO with history) and on the other hand ‘Squadron 42’, the Single player story mode.
It is a very ambitious proposal. Very, very much. And very controversial, too.
GDC 2012. In September 2012 the first teaser trailer was released and in October, during GDC, the game was announced and, shortly after, the Kickstarter campaign was launched. The team developed its own website and… it collapsed. The goal was two million dollars and the website was not able to withstand the flood of users who came to support the project. So Kickstarter came to their aid and allowed a parallel campaign to run. It didn’t take long to complete his goal.
Since then, the game has grossed more than $750 million.
What is it about? Of what not, rather. The Star Citizen proposal is really complete and we can understand it as a space MMORPG where we can do whatever we want, from doing delivery missions, competing against other players in events that take place throughout the “verse”, flying from one planet to another , shoot other users… All this after getting lost a couple of times through the stations, not finding your ship, finding it and having learned to turn it on, raise it, pilot it, etc. In short, it is a game that has everything, or that is the idea.
To have it, it has an internal reputation system that, depending on our decisions, will make the factions love us more or less. But in any case, what makes Star Citizen great are the ships.
Imagen | Roberts Space Industries
The ships. Star Citizen will have (clears throat and clears throat) 250 ships of which 190 are already in the game. Each ship has its own characteristics, and we are not talking about it being faster or having more cargo capacity. There are some indicated for combat, others for training, others for racing, others for transporting goods, others for expeditions, others medical, others and others and others. Ships can be purchased with in-game currency, but also with real money. And well, there is everything.
The starter packs, necessary to enter the game, already include a ship, but the cheapest one costs 20 euros. If we go for the most expensive, a Polaris prepared for combat, we are talking about 975 euros. And at least that one is useful for combat, but the one just below, a luxury space cruiser designed for taking a walk, costs 950 euros. If you were wondering where the $750 million came from, here’s the answer. You can find all the ships on the game website.
Imagen | Roberts Space Industries
And you better have it insured (yes, you have to Buy insurance with in-game currency), because if it turns out that xXJuanGamerXx destroys your ship during a space skirmish, you will be left without a ship. This affects ships obtained and purchased in the game with in-game currency, but don’t worry, if you have bought a ship for 950 euros with real money, the worst that can happen is that you will have to pay the recovery costs with in-game currency. (which, yes, you will have to get). This insurance, in principle, will arrive when the game is officially launched.
The controversy. Star Citizen was announced in 2012 and the idea was that it would be released in 2014. In just a few days we will be in 2025, so you could say that it has suffered a certain delay. It is a game whose development is taking forever and which has been the subject of many controversies. After all, it is a game that is in alpha, that has been promising a launch for years that does not arrive and whose barrier to entry is as high as the user is willing to pay. It’s an ambitious game, but it has as many people supporting it as there are detractors who believe the game will never be released.
Imagen | Roberts Space Industries
Release date. He doesn’t have it. Well, 2014, but it’s already late. The game has an alpha that can now be played and the official information is that it does not have a release date. ‘Squadron 42’, the single-player experience, has a “tentative” and “expected” release date: 2026. In some ways, the enormous funding that the game has received has caused the initial goals to have increased and that it is wanted adding more and more and more things, something that is delaying the game to infinity.
That, and things as absurd as it taking days to decide where to put a piece of furniture that the user will never interact with or that Star Engine, the game engine, is a kind of Frankstein based on CryEngine that causes some problems. .
Cover image | Roberts Space Industries
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