Star Citizen remains in development with a $600 million investment, and after a year, its current status is unclear.
Star Citizen remains in development with a $600 million investment, and after a year, its current status is unclear.
I enjoy Star Citizen, but at $45 you won't find this experience anywhere. It's an alpha version with many missing features. Still, after playing a bit, you'll appreciate how it grows. Opinions vary, but if you play it, you'll see its potential. Recent gameplay on YouTube shows what's possible. I hope it gets released eventually—even if not, I had a great time for free. Just note it's a very demanding game, and only the latest X3D CPUs help the GPU keep up.
Occasionally desire surpasses skill. I believe this is the situation here. If this were a fraud, there would be no functional product to release. Moreover, by sharing an incomplete and flawed version, they might be offering you a rough gaming experience...
I don't believe the whole "it's a scam" argument holds up. Spending money on virtual items like ships can be huge, but you still get value if you enjoy the game. If you buy something because of a future promise rather than current quality, it’s not very wise. The same goes for release dates—don’t expect a single player to finish the project quickly. Star Citizen is likely to stay active as long as people keep playing and buying. You can usually play it now; the real question is: when will it feel stable and enjoyable? Not when some vague milestone changes status. A big concern with CIG is that they seem capable technically but may lack the insight to craft engaging gameplay. Their mechanics are complex and often unnecessary, which detracts from fun. They’re building a simulation hoping it’ll work eventually, but so far it hasn’t. The game has potential, but it’s not yet polished enough.
The contrast is striking: Chris Roberts leads the Wing Commander series, which Origin released with flaws but EA distributed mainly for WC and Ultima Online—issues that also affected Ultima since its start. My expectations spanned from Wing Commander Privateer to Mass Effect, passing through Star Control and beyond. Starfield actually delivers well across many aspects, introducing planet construction and customizable vessels (though only up to an 80-meter corvette), which are novel compared to previous titles like Fallout 4. Yet I’ve long stopped following Star Citizen’s journey. Starfield meets most of my criteria, hitting around 80% of what I hoped for, and became known since April this year. It’s been in development for three years less than Star Citizen (2015 vs 2011). Comparing them isn’t fair—Star Citizen ships lack modularity, and its narrative remains tethered to the Star Lancer universe, echoing the original Wing Commander structure. You’re limited to flying fighter craft, with missions focused on protecting capital ships and couriers, which feel weak compared to real combat. The asteroid and minefield hazards are especially disappointing; they often destroy your vessel instantly. In contrast, Starfield lets you absorb impacts and collect resources from debris. There’s no storyline about safeguarding other ships. Exploration is centered around walking the surface, solving mysteries, and completing side missions that range from corporate investigations to space piracy. The main plot revolves around finding anomalies on planets, while companions guide you through past events. Faction objectives are vague, and UC quests focus on ecological threats. Ryujin missions involve corporate intrigue, the Crimson Fleet on piracy, and sidequests range from mining to hunting down criminals. Occasionally you’ll meet the invasive species or encounter them in dynamic encounters. Space travel is sparse, with settlements mostly belonging to factions or NPCs. Some say Starfield feels hollow, reflecting a world where humanity has only explored space for a few centuries—far less than the 600 years depicted in Star Citizen. Yet I’ve stopped following Star Citizen’s progress, settling for what it offers. It resembles a repetitive, grind-heavy experience akin to older titles like EVE, which isn’t what I expected from a free-to-play game.
Indie titles like No Man's Sky, Starfield, The Outer Worlds, and others have reached a saturation point where players settle for familiar experiences. While Star Citizen keeps making promises about expanded content, the constant addition of features often traps developers in a cycle similar to what they faced with Half-Life 3. Focusing too much on scope can make it nearly impossible to deliver a game that truly meets expectations and stands out as a solid title.
Starfield offers a great ship construction system, but it's limited by the design rules and available modules, which keep most builds flat. I'm excited about a future mod that would ease these constraints and introduce new modules! My goal is to construct the Homeworld mothership. Ship combat feels broken when you divide your vessel into two connected halves, since the AI always targets the middle, causing missed hits.
I’m aiming for more freedom to design structures like starbases, capital vessels, and advanced weapon platforms. While the plot isn’t directly related, having that capability would be a big plus. Building iconic ships such as Enterprise, A, D, Voyager, or even DS9 would be much easier. Capital ships from other media are hard to replicate, but I can still craft them. For fun, I could design a Voyager with just a bridge section linking directly to the docking bay. The Protostar (139m) remains too large, and the rest can serve as hull or storage sections. This frustration probably comes from how most sci-fi TV shows focus on capital ships, even those like Serenity at 85m, which is close to a starfield vessel. Ship sizes in games like Starfield are quite limited—around 8x8 pixels here—so compared to real-world designs, there’s a big gap.
The disappointment lies in the fact that no space RPG exists yet that matches what Star Citizen offers. I thought Starfield would be a smaller version of Star Citizen, but it turned out like Outer Worlds with bland JRPG-style conversations—Star Citizen had to cut a planet because they "ran out of space." It seems we don’t have the tech to bring Star Citizen to its promised level, or if we do, we’d have to start from scratch. Is it worth it? Which direction should they take? I’m not sure, but I remember some special moments in Star Citizen that could never exist elsewhere, making the experience worthwhile despite the short playtime.