The year thus far has not been the best possible year for Star Citizen. The game has seen a few people depart from prominent positions, delays to planned release schedules, and an essay by the ever-contentious Derek Smart claiming the game will never be made as pitched. Community manager Ben Lesnick addressed these concerns in a lengthy forum post yesterday, covering pretty much any and all concerns raised by players over the past several months.
Lesnick explains that the Star Marine delay is seen internally as a delay of weeks rather than months or years and that it remains an integral part of the game as a whole. He also explains some of the reasons behind ships that have been sold but are not yet actually playable and dismisses concerns over recent employee departures. And then he lands on the forever topic, feature creep:
I don’t have much to say to this, beyond that it’s not accurate. At this point, we are not adding additional features to the plan, we’re building out the ones we’ve already scheduled. I’ve seen some recent posts about how Chris’ “first person universe” is at odds with the original Kickstarter-era plan… and that’s again not the case. It’s a more recent way of describing what he wants to accomplish, but everything we’re working on is still what was pitched back then: Privateer-style persistent universe, Squadron 42 single player game, first person boarding and so on. (A desire to avoid feature creep is exactly why we stopped doing stretch goals, despite being aware that they drive revenue.)
Whether you’re an ardent fan of the game or just want a peek behind the scenes, you owe it to yourself to read through the series of posts yourself.
