Last week, German-language German website Gamestar published an interview with Star Citizen studio Cloud Imperium Games, noting that Roberts appeared to have said Star Citizen will launch with 5 to 10 star systems, an apparent reduction in scope from original launch plans (we already know the 3.0 alpha will launch with just one incomplete system.) That provoked this infamous missed-deadline infographic and the weekly flamewar.
A week later, CIG is finally tackling the uproar, calling the whole thing an oops over translation, chiefly a misunderstanding of the translation of the word “release.”
“Hey guys! This is a case of things being lost in translation; Chris was asked a specific question about how many systems we expect to have online at the point that we’ve got most of the core mechanics completed and we would consider the gameplay experience suitable for a larger audience. There are no changes with regards to the planned amount of systems which are well documented on the current Star Map.”
It’s hard to count all the systems on the star map because of its depth and width, but we took a look and we’ll estimate there’s about 100 on it right now.
Further, CIG Zyloh says,
“Also, it’s important to remember that the scope of the game has increased greatly since the original crowdfunding campaign. Since those early days we’ve created procedural planet tech, moved from 32 bit to 64 bit… all of it leading to billions of kilometers of space and millions of square kilometers of landmass to explore, all rendered in detail that matches the most detailed 1st person games that only have to worry about a few dozen kilometers of playable area. This takes time to fill out, so while it will take us longer to fully deliver and populate every system at this fidelity rather than if we had only a handful of points of interest per star system, we have no intention of reducing the size of the Star Citizen universe.”
To translate that from devspeak to English, you’ll have to sort out exactly what CIG means when it says when “most of the core mechanics completed and we would consider the gameplay experience suitable for a larger audience” because that’s apparently what the 5-10 systems refers to, not necessarily the formal release or launch. Eventually, however, it’ll expand out to its planned hundred.
