Star Citizen has ‘no final finish line like traditional retail games’

Crowdfunding record-breaker Star Citizen represents a change not only to how games are funded but also how they are handled post-release.

That’s according to RSI boss Chris Roberts who, in his latest update, has said that there will not be a date on which the game will be released and cut adrift by his studio.

Star Citizen isn’t a sprint, it isn’t even a marathon. There is no final finish line the way you would have with a traditional retail game,” he said. Star Citizen is a way of life for as long as the community is engaged by it.

Star Citizen doesn’t easily fit in a familiar box like most games you’ll buy from a major publisher. Very early in the project I made a decision to go beyond the traditional alpha model and share functionality of the game as we built it, updating and involving the community every step of the way.

The number one priority for team in building the Persistent Universe is how players themselves can affect the universe. We’re building a game that will be just as community driven once the game is ‘finished’. It’s why we’ve built organisation support into the web site, why we’re expanding it this coming year with private forums and blogs and starting to layer in the organisation support in the game itself.”

The game’s funding total has now hit $68.5m, with its in-house development team having grown from 70 just a year ago to 180. Add to that the additional 120 outsourced people also working on the game and the total climbs to 300.

Since the release of the game’s first build RSI has delivered a further 23 updates bringing the total number of available ships to 15.