Star Citizen surpasses 700 million dollars in funding and still has no release date

Star Citizen is a game that has been in development since 2012 and, with a perpetually open crowdfunding campaign, continues to achieve milestones.

The development times of video games are becoming longer and longer. The budgets are getting bigger and bigger. But there is probably no game that has blatantly exceeded all logic in both aspects as Star Citizen. A space simulator with elements of massive online RPG from Cloud Imperium Games that has been in development, at least, since September 2012. And today it has announced that its crowdfunding has already reached 700 million dollars.

To be exact, it has reached $701,164,678, at the time of writing this news, according to the company’s internal tracker. This figure is due to a particularly spectacular growth in funding during the week of May 20th. Something that is particularly evident considering that on Saturday, May 25th alone, it managed to raise almost three million dollars.

The reason for this donation frenzy is that the game has received a free-to-play event from May 17th to 29th. This has caused the game’s funding to increase almost exponentially over the past two weeks. A considerable achievement considering that the game already has over five million people who have funded it and has been in development since 2012. Still without a specific date on the horizon for the release of its final version.

That doesn’t mean the game isn’t making progress in its intentions. Last October 2023, at Cloud Imperium Games, they confirmed that the Star Citizen campaign, named Squadron 42, is considered completed. With the development team busy optimizing and refining the gameplay experience, it still doesn’t have a specific release date.

On the other hand, patch 3.23 has introduced wildlife on habitable planets, a feature that players have been demanding for a long time. Although the major update will not arrive until the third quarter of 2024, when Alpha 4.0 will be released, which will include a whole new solar system with new explorable planets. In addition to some other mechanics such as a life support system on ships that, we are sure, will never ever cause any problems or make our space travels more tense.

That’s why, although the game is already playable, it doesn’t seem to be anywhere near complete. Something that, as long as they continue to achieve milestones in their particular crowdfunding, doesn’t seem to be ending. For better or for worse, for Star Citizen fans.

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Star Citizen is a space life simulator that combines features of space simulation, first-person shooter, and massively multiplayer online genres.

If you want to have everything ‘Star Citizen’, it will cost you two years’ salary. Is it worth it?

From August 2013 until now, the game has been gradually revealing itself, but there is still no definitive version or a date for when it will be released. However, you can certainly spend money on it abundantly.

The development of ‘Star Citizen‘ started in 2011, and we are still waiting for it to be fully released. Twelve years later, it has become the most expensive game in history, having raised over 600 million dollars through crowdfunding. From August 2013 until now, the game has been gradually revealed, but there is still no definitive version or a date for its release. However, you can certainly spend money on it.

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Burn money!

There is no month without a controversy about ‘Star Citizen’ and its, let’s call it, business model. It used to be because you had to pay even to watch the CitizenCon from your home (yes, it has its own annual conference) and now because they have announced how much the new pack with all the game’s ships will cost. All of them. The expensive ones, the cheap ones… all the DLC prepared for you in a possibly infinite game for the modest price of $48,000.

And you might be thinking “Did they miss a zero, right?”. But no. If you’re really interested, go ahead and empty your bank account, you’ll know if it’s worth it. The pack is called Legatus Ship and it contains all the ships (175) and their upgrades: in their defense, it must be said that they have been releasing this pack since 2021, always with the relevant updates, and this year it costs 6000 more than last year. Nothing, just a few bucks.

But if you have decided to make the best of a bad situation and a $60 ship is not enough to start moving around in space, wait: you can’t afford it even if you have the money ready. And that’s because, to get this DLC, you have to be part of the Presidents Club, which can be accessed by paying an additional $1000. For almost $50,000 personally, I can think of many other things to do besides buying fake ships for an unfinished video game, but to each their own…

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