Cloud Imperium Games delays Star Citizen's Squadron 42

Cloud Imperium Games has confirmed what those following its efforts on crowdfunded ubergame Star Citizen have long suspected: the single-player campaign, Squadron 42, won't be meeting its 2016 launch date.

Unveiled by Chris Roberts, creator of the classic Wing Commander franchise, back in 2012, Star Citizen has turned into something of a behemoth. Its crowdfunding campaign, split between third-party platforms and its own website, rapidly picked up steam: when it hit $14 million in July 2013 it was already breaking records, and smashed $35 million by December that year. Its last official stretch goal fell when its total broke $50 million in August 2014, but even now backers are only able to play what you could reasonably describe as a series of tech demos for the title.

Swelling coffers has inevitably led to accusations of feature creep, and the company's rather ambitious launch targets have fallen by the wayside as a result. The game was originally scheduled to launch in November 2014, but its increased scope saw its creators split the title into playable chunks each with its own development schedule. One of these is Squadron 42, the game's single-player campaign boasting motion-captured talent ranging from Mark 'Luke Skywalker' Hamill to Gary 'In Everything' Oldman. As late as September Roberts and his team were denying rumours that Squadron 42 would miss its 2016 launch window, but now those denials have turned to confirmation: the game won't launch this year.

In a status update as part of the CitizenCon event this weekend, Cloud Imperium Games confirmed that Squadron 42 will not be launching in 2016. While the company claimed 'most of our base technology [for the game] is now complete,' it listed a string of hurdles still to be cleared ranging from technology-related issue like pathfinding logic, animation, AI, and a mission system through to the admission that none of the game's chapters are in a finished state - instead being what the company calls 'grey-box or better' status.

Where previously the official website had listed a 2016 launch date, any mention of a release schedule has now vanished with Cloud Imperium Games remaining silent on just when it thinks backers may be able to pick up and play the first full chunk of what it had originally promised to launch back in November 2014.