It’s time for our semi-annual (semi-monthly? semi-regular?) look at the funding page for Star Citizen, and once more we’re seeing the cost of keeping the alpha in an alpha continue to mount: The total crowdfunded total has now nearly reached $590M, with an unsurprising uptick in May visible in the graph’s monthly view. This is likely thanks to sales during that month’s Invictus Launch Week event.
PCGamesN helped put these costs into perspective, outlining that reported development of Grand Theft Auto 5 cost $137M, Red Dead Redemption 2 cost $170M, and Cyberpunk 2077 cost $174M, for a total of $481M. So apparently, the three largest games in recent history cost less to fully release than a game that’s still in alpha testing.
Speaking of unreleased games, CIG has put out its June roadmap roundup for Star Citizen, with nods towards improving wheeled vehicle handling and making the Mirai Fury and Tumbril Storm playable, while Squadron 42’s monthly report checks in with AI development work, character creation features, ship and vehicle handling tweaks, and building up Stanton and Krugeri capital ships, among other things.
SQ42, incidentally, still hasn’t brought back its purchase button, meaning the “expected price change” is still forthcoming. But clearly the studio is still making money anyway.
