Roberts will create Star Citizen without a publisher. He has private investment, but needs to do "an element" of crowd funding to raise between two and four million dollars and validate the private investors' valuation of the project. The game itself will cost between 12 million and 14 million dollars to create.
"I can make it for this price because I'm not making it inside the system," he said. "If I did it inside the system that would be $20+ million."
Roberts decided not to use Kickstarter to raise the money because "it's an extra step between the developer and the community". Instead, the game's online face will be robertsspaceindustries.com, where Star Citizen will eventually launch. It contains a custom crowd funding plug-in that goes live today.
Roberts, who has been out of the public eye for the best part of a decade, founded developer Cloud Imperium Games Corporation in April 2011. He has alongside a small team worked on the creation of art assets, story elements and an extensive prototype of Star Citizen, a persistent online universe due out at some point in 2014.
Star Citizen features a dynamic economy and an open world. Roberts describes it as a mash up of Freelancer and Privateer, two of his previous games, and a Wing Commander game. The single-player mode can be played offline or co-op with friends in a similar fashion to the way players impact each other's games in Demon's Souls, he said.
The story revolves around a political drama inspired by the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. But players will be most concerned with Squadron 42, a sort of sci-fi French Foreign Legion. 42 has a reputation for always pulling through even during the most difficult of missions, and your goal is to get accepted into its ranks.
This being an online game of sorts, Roberts will add micro-updates over time. An example could be a new star system or a set of new missions. Players will be able to name a star system if they are the first to chart it, then sell those charts to space corporations for virtual currency.
Holy shit, that trailer was real-time on a GTX 670.
So that are 2 games? Star Citizen and Squadron 42?
So that are 2 games? Star Citizen and Squadron 42?
Star Citizen was the name of the trailer.
He has alongside a small team worked on the creation of art assets, story elements and an extensive prototype of Star Citizen, a persistent online universe due out at some point in 2014.
Star Citizen features a dynamic economy and an open world. Roberts describes it as a mash up of Freelancer and Privateer, two of his previous games, and a Wing Commander game. The single-player mode can be played offline or co-op with friends in a similar fashion to the way players impact each other's games in Demon's Souls, he said.
now I'm confused.
The story revolves around a political drama inspired by the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. But players will be most concerned with Squadron 42, a sort of sci-fi French Foreign Legion. 42 has a reputation for always pulling through even during the most difficult of missions, and your goal is to get accepted into its ranks.
The campaign mode is called Squadron 42, the persistent universe is called Star Citizen. All part of one game it seems.
crowd funding but not kicktarter. that budget
about the game;
Sounds like an MMO to me.
. some of the shots.
There's a campaign mode, multiplayer is like Demon's Souls in that mode.
Those who support the game early will get to play builds ahead of the release of the final version. Roberts hopes a year from now an alpha multiplayer version of the game will be available. This won't take place in the persistent universe, but will act like a World of Tanks battle session. 10 months after this release the alpha persistent world will launch, with the full game due out just over two years from now, at some point late 2014