One of the most well-funded crowd-sourced projects of all time, we’re finally getting closer to the day where Star Citizen rockets its way out of the development room and into the hands of consumers as a complete release, and while that is still a year away, there is much to see of the space crawler at the annual South by Southwest conference and festival in Austin, Texas.
There’s More To Come at SXSW
There is still a Star Citizen panel to come at SXSW, but we’ve already got a sneak peek at where the space FPS explorer is in its development thanks to a new video montage released to fans (found below). If you’re unfamiliar with what Star Citizen is, imagine Grand Theft Auto on a galactic scale, with an even stronger focus on exploration and persistent development. At least, that’s part of the open-ended approach that Star Citizen is hoping to accomplish.
In truth, no one is quite sure exactly what Star Citizen is going to be once it’s released, as the scope of the project is so large that there’s a little bit of everything to be had.
A Crowd-funded Juggernaut
Star Citizen started raising crowd-funding on platforms like Kickstarter way back in 2012, with an ambitious project that touched and inspired funders in a way that had never previously been done before — and that’s not just hyperbole.
By the time SC closed on its funding time with Kickstarter, the space FPS nabbed a then-record breaking for gaming $6.2 million from fans to help along in its development, between his website and Kickstarter, and by the time 2015 had rolled around, the project had pulled in roughly $75 million from supporters — yes, you heard that right, that’s seventy-five million.
By all accounts, SC was an extreme success on the funding front, and it was only a matter of seeing whether or not the developers at Cloud Imperium Games could pull through with the ambitious project. Even creator Chris Roberts has alluded in the past that the ever-growing nature of the project means that even when it’s released, it may never be finished.
Putting the Pieces Together
Our first look at the FPS side of Star Citizen came at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) back in November of last year, where an FPS demo was unveiled and fans could absorb the direction of the game’s player-based combat. Prior to that, the E3 2014 stage demo expanded on the space and flight combat angle. Supporters of the game, of course, have been dabbling in blocks of content from the game for a while now already, but for everyone not intimately involved in the development process, video releases like these go a long way to reminding people that not only is this project still in the works, but it’s rapidly nearing playable release.
Check out the latest video montage of Star Citizen from SXSW below, and let us know what you think: Are you still excited for SC? Have they met your expectations so far in development?