Roughly 11 years after Star Citizen’s initial announcement, Squadron 42, the single-player campaign, is now feature complete and has entered its polish phase. Chris Roberts announced this in a video as part of an annual CitizenCon for backers, along with footage from the game and details on its development. Nearly 10 years have passed since Squadron 42’s reveal from Cloud Imperium as Star Citizen’s standalone singleplayer campaign. In that time we’ve seen delays heaped upon delays, major feature changes, and plenty of announcements about its star-studded cast, which includes Gary Oldman, Mark Hamill, and Gillian Anderson. So much has happened, in fact, that you’d be forgiven for forgetting what on earth the whole thing was about in the first place.
What is Squadron 42?
Squadron 42 is a standalone single player campaign in the Star Citizen universe, fully playable offline and blending spaceship dogfighting with on-foot, first-person combat and puzzle-solving. You play as a new recruit in the United Empire of Earth Navy, an elite military unit fighting to protect humanity against both aliens and bandits. You’ll live aboard a massive capital ship, and from there you’ll be dispatched to various missions, which will take place both in the cockpit of various customizable spaceships and on foot. Expect a mixture of large-scale space battles and first-person shooting, and some missions will have multiple paths to their conclusions. As well as the overarching story, you’ll get a chance to define your character through the actions you take, and a dynamic reputation system that changes your standing with various NPCs throughout the story.
Back in 2015, head of CIG Chris Roberts said it’d take around 20 hours to complete, but it’s hard to know whether that estimate is still relevant. Squadron 42 was initially being developed by Foundry 42, a studio within CIG led by Chris Roberts’ brother Erin, who also worked on the original Wing Commander. Since then, Foundry 42 has been folded bringing into the wider Cloud Imperium banner, and Squadron 42 is now being developed by multiple CIG studios.
How is Squadron 42 linked to Star Citizen’s persistent universe?
You can think of Squadron 42 and Star Citizen, for the most part, as separate entities: You don’t have to own one to play the other, and they’re both fully-priced games—theoretically, though we won’t know about pricing until Squadron 42’s release details appear. At one time, CIG indicated that some of the actions you take in Squadron 42 will cross over to Star Citizen. However, it’s unclear if that’s still the case after the last 5 years of development.
Squadron 42 release date and price
Squadron 42, like Star Citizen, was initially due to launch in 2014 but we still don’t really have an idea when it will launch. The roadmap that CIG was using initially has since been retired. While we still don’t have a release date, developer Cloud Imperium Games announced at CitizenCon in October 2023 that Squadron 42 is feature-complete. “As we move into the polishing phase, we’re fully focused on optimizing and fine-tuning all aspects of the gameplay experience to deliver an unprecedented cinematic adventure,” Cloud Imperium Games said alongside a 23-minute game overview video. While the game’s development has moved into its later stages, we don’t have a timeframe for its release, and we’re still too far out to estimate a potential release window without more information.
Cost
While backers were able to purchase Squadron 42 separately with a $45/£43 pledge, that option has disappeared from the Star Citizen pledge store. Responding to questions about the removal of the standalone purchase option, CIG said on the RSI forums in May 2023 that “Squadron 42 has been removed from the store at its current price, but will return at a later time. This change is not meant to signify anything other than an expected price change. Currently, the only way to get theoretical access to Squadron 42 in the CIG pledge store is to buy it as part of a $1100 USD bundle. Despite that, however, you can pre-order the Squadron 42 digital strategy guide for ten dollars.
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