Allow us to provide a bit of context before we get to the news: This is all about Theaters of War, a 20v20 mixed arms PvP mode that was first revealed at CitizenCon 2019. The vast majority of the talk about Theaters of War was its inclusion as a new mode into Star Citizen itself, with work on the mode being taken on by a UK developer known as Firesprite. Readers will also recall that a Calling All Devs video from May 2021 described the Firesprite team and some CIG devs working on Theaters as small, representing 1.6% of the overall development budget.
Assuming this rumor holds any truth, it would appear that the scope of Theaters has changed. A leaked list of games for GeForce has among them Theaters of War (found in lines 1915 and 1916 of the GitHub link or with a search for “Theaters”). The prevailing assumption is that a game mode wouldn’t get its own separate database listing, particularly since Star Citizen and Squadron 42 each have their own database listings as well. This list of games has many players assuming that Theaters of War is now being turned into its own standalone title and is being released to PC and console, owing to the fact that Theaters of War has two listings.
Reaction to this news has been extremely unpleasant. Posts on Star Citizen’s forums bringing up the matter are reportedly being deleted by moderators. One such post was captured before it was scrubbed, showing one player’s extreme dissatisfaction with CIG’s attempt to fund development of a third game. “No one backed Star Citizen/Squadron 42 for CIG to make a completely new standalone game when SC and SQ42 aren’t even close to being finished,” reads part of the post. “Stop wasting the immense funds raised for the development of SC and SQ42 on something no one wants.”
Of course, there is the possibility that the game’s standalone listing is not quite so nefarious and is simply because Firesprite — a partnered but wholly separate studio all the same — is working on the mode itself. As one might expect, CIG is being rather mum on the subject right now, as the game’s forums show no sign of ToW chatter.
