Shocking exactly 4 people on the planet, Squadron 42 might not make it’s just-recently-confirmed-absolutely-rock-solid 2026 release date. 😂
Although I will say that at this point even laughing about it becomes difficult. It’s been so many years, every joke has been made and every laugh has been had.
Game development as a service.
When this game is released the setting is going to be ancient history.
You know, when they mentioned 8k textures 10 years ago, I laughed because it was so overshooting gaming standards that it was laughable. Now I’m think they will be just on track when it actually launches.
By the time they launch, they’ll have a game with 8k textures and everyone else will be releasing games for Star Trek’s holodeck.
As a very early backer of S42 way back in apparently 2012: It never ceases to annoy me that The Wing Commander Guy has once again managed to do everything possible to NOT make a fucking Wing Commander. This is, what, the third big clusterfuck and the first one where there was nobody to take it away from him and just finish it themselves? But, whatever.
As a big fan of elite games: I am really glad star citizen “exists” to contrast Elite Dangerous and has led to some truly amazing games in the genre. Some of which actually ARE more Wing Commander than not (Everspace 2 is basically the Freelancer that was promised). Now we just need some studio to make a proper Freespace game.
All that said: I don’t like it but I weirdly keep coming back to the thought process that Star Citizen actually IS delivering on its “promise” to the backers… of the past decade or so. Not the OGs. Fuck us.
Because they were never sold on actually playing a game. They were sold on a dream. It is the same logic by which you watch Aisha Tyler do VO for a Tom Clancy game and think that you and your friends are also going to be super sweaty tier seven operators. Or how you watch your favorite group of online youtubers read off their pre-written jokes and pretend to be shocked while playing “friendslop” games. Or… you are a non-sicko who read too many AARs of Dwarf Fortress and thought you would boatmurder too.
Its the idea of spending money to Dream. You know you’ll never actually do what you saw the pretty people do. But you THINK you will and, by owning a copy of Garry’s Mod that you will never boot up, you think you will too.
Obviously the star citizen heads are spending WAY more than 20 bucks a pop and some are buying multiple megaships they’ll never use meaningfully. But it is hard to not see parallels to the people who buy a DCS plane because they want to pretend that one day they will learn how to fly that jet.
And… truth be told, I think I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of the annual charity streams where Drew Scanlon (The Blinking White Guy) and Vinny Caravella attempt to play Star Citizen and spend an hour or two crashing to desktop, getting confused, and accomplishing absolutely nothing. Hell, I think there were a few years where they never even found each other in the space station?
Also, as much as Freelancer hurt, I’ll never stop laughing/being annoyed that he managed to take a sci-fi movie starring Freddie Prinze Jr AND Baby Busey AND Matthew Lillard and turn it into a charisma-free void with no redeeming qualities. Like, you gotta put some fricking effort into that. Those guys could make reading the dictionary be entertaining.
I got no sympathy for anyone that is disappointed and continues to “pledge” to this “game”. I mean hell a few years ago they got me and I “pledged” $200 for a ship that I may or may not still have. but then afterwards I felt like a rube.
So I get it, I fell for it once, but still no sympathy for anyone that continues to do so.
I’m in a similar boat. Pledged but it’s been years since I gave them money and I’m not really following it closely anymore. Can’t say I ever felt like a rube though, backing a crowdfunded project is always a gamble to some degree, and that money was so long ago that any impact on my situation from having it or not has long since faded.
I’m a little disappointed in the date potentially being pushed back, but it’s not like I marked it on my calendar or anything. If they had said nothing and the date just slipped by I probably wouldn’t even notice if no one else brought it up.
I’ll play S42 if/when it comes out, and probably even enjoy it, but I’m not chomping at the bit.
People continuing to give them additional money now are simply deranged though.
Scam Shitizen.
I guess if it’s any consolation, our real world space efforts are also largely even more behind schedule than usual, thanks Elon.
I think the people claiming this game is a scam, don’t know what scam means. I paid for this game years ago and sometimes I go online and have fun with friends or just drink beer and do cargo hauling to relax. Like any other game really. Early access or not, people are having fun.
Sunk cost fallacy? What cost am I putting in, and what am I expecting in return? This game cost me a night on the town years ago that would’ve been forgotten at this point, and gained me a fun space game.
Ok, so preordering what promises to be a motorcycle but years later getting a bicycle instead that you happen to enjoy riding is also acceptable?
Umm, I bought it because Gary Oldman said squadron 42 was coming out next year. I want a modern freelancer. That was over a decade. That really seems like a scam…
What does you having fun with friends in star citizen have to do with the discussion about it being a scam?
These things are unrelated.
There are companies with 50K employees with working delivery (no JPEG of an oil barrel) where the management was found to engage in fraud.
It’s not like the only type of scam possible is a day 1 rugpull.
Horribly mismanaged? Incompetent project management? Horrifyingly bad predictions, even lying? Big mess of a project? Sure.
Scam? No. They really are trying to do the thing they said they are.
And as you say, even though they’re never, ever going to deliver what they promised because they can’t, they have delivered a thing that a lot of people like
But god DAMN. They said most of the PU features would be done in 2016/17. 9 years later 80% of what they promised still isn’t there. Multi crew has been walked back. Etc etc.
All I really wanted was SQ42 back when I supported it on Kickstarter. With my 20 bucks there’s no regret, but it’s quite funny where things have gone since then.
I install the latest alpha once every year and am both amazed and disappointed.
I don’t expect SQ42 to be released before 2030 and I do expect it to be a buggy, unoptimized mess when it finally arrives.
I’ve been thoroughly entertained all those years, though.
At this point, I’m just looking at all this as an interesting social experiment on sunk cost fallacy
I wonder how long they can go without delivering on anything
I think the fact that they are very very glacially slowly delivering on things at least, all the while self-discovering software development instead of learning it, that aggravates me even more. Bloober Team could finish this faster and more competently than these clowns…
Glacially is OVERstating how much and how quickly.
Especially compared to their original predictions.
We already know what happens with long term sunk cost fallacy. It is a scam.
well, they are still slowly actually adding more stuff to the game. I dont think they intend to scam anyone since they occasionally allow people to play the game for free and without that i would have been inclined to buy it many times now to see what kind of game it is (and would have felt scammed). Now i just keep waiting for them to add enough stuff for the game to be worth getting, but after hearing they might add somekind of p2w shop crap i think i might just forget about the whole thing if it really bad.
Its too bad if the game collapses at some point since it really has promise. I resent them for first fucking around with the money they were given and making it all seem like a scam even when there is potential for it to not be.
Its too bad if the game collapses at some point since it really has promise.
No one denies the game has promise. The problem is that it does not have much else. Having ideas is the easy part in game development.
the promise i see comes from things that are actually in the game. Though it still needs more to be worthwhile, so i’m not risking my money yet. They just need to add more fun things to do and fix the problems with what they already have and it would already be kind of ok, provided they keep adding stuff.
The times I’ve had with this game over the years I feel is well worth the cost of dinner at an fairly upscale restaurant or a night out drinking.
It’ll be released when the original backers grandchildren have kids 😂
I remember hearing this joke in 2020.
Joke?
My old boss was a backer back when he had a young child.
That child is now in high school.
💀
Color me surprised. I still think this whole thing is a big scam, like a money laundering scheme or some grift.
If you look into the history of Chris Roberts you’ll know it’s not a scam. Roberts is one of the few creatives I’d say actually needs an executive board to hold him back, because he’ll never stop and actually finish something.
I don’t think there’s a single project Roberts has finished on his own accord. He has always been made to finish.
I very much doubt that when (if) the game releases, it will be worth the wait and live up to the hype.
And you can bet your ass that for how outdated it’ll look when it releases in 2035 or so, it’ll still chug at <30 FPS on your NVidia 35090.
I just hope i will have a good time at the old folks home.
I remember them announcing that SQ404 was entering a “polishing” phase in late 2023.
At that point and to this day, they failed to finalise a flight model, develop an armour/shield system and implement engineering gameplay.
Arguably these are critical elements for a release with space sim gameplay. Although if SQ404 does release, I think it will be 30 hours of Wing Commander The Movie level cut scenes (space bulldozer) and script, with bored sounding Hollywood actors counting the seconds till they can leave Chris Roberts’ mocap studio.
Inside Chris Roberts’ Mocap Studio:
Roberts: Hehehe. Hey, Mark! You know how I came up with the Vanduul? Hehe.
Hamil: No, how?
Roberts: Ehehe. Vandals to Vanduul! Get it? Hehehe. Pretty smart, right? Hehehe.
Hamil: Very original.
Roberts: Did you know the Vandals were a Germanic tribal grouping that raided the Roman Empire? Bet you didn’t know that! Hehehe.
Hamil: I am in awe of your creativy!
Roberts: I know, right! Hehehe.
Ok Mark, enough farting around. Pretend you are riding a space bulldozer!
I think it will be 30 hours of Wing Commander The Movie level cut scenes
It never existed!
Sigh deeply, rub their foreheads, and open their wallets.
Not to worry, I’ll have GTA 15 to keep me entertained until then
