Star Citizen is a game that looks very cool and is promising a lot. Well, a little less now, after one of its key “modules” — a first-person shooter known as Star Marine — was delayed indefinitely.
In a letter to the game’s community, Star Citizen creator Chris Roberts goes to great lengths to explain the technical problems his team has been having with the FPS component of his space simulator (the game has been created in “modules” so they can be tested independently and then bolted together). It’s a welcome look behind the scenes, in keeping with the transparent development process the crowd-funded project has supported all along, and ends with a very realistic request for understanding from fans and backers:
I can’t promise you we’ll meet every internal deadline or that every decision we make is something you’ll agree with. There will be challenges that we struggle to overcome, and we will never be able to predict all of these with certainty…but I can promise you we will keep you informed and that we will not stop working until the game is done right.
But still, the fact an entire section of the game has been delayed — with no ETA in sight — must be a bummer to people waiting to get their hands on it.
Work on the game’s other modules — like flying around in space — is unaffected
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24 responses to “Star Citizen’s FPS Mode Delayed”
I didn’t see this one coming. Delayed… im shocked. :O
Ok as someone who’s only followed Star Citizen briefly I’ve got to ask; doesn’t Elite: Dangerous or No Man’s Sky effectively look to do what this game’s doing in terms of gameplay, exploration and telling your own story?
Edit: Genuine question, I’m just curious as to why Star Citizen gets so much unbridled support!
wing commandee
I think it’s probably because Star Citizen began their campaign “first” and helped start that first big push in to the space sim genre revival. When E:D started their Kickstarter SC had raised 3M+ by that point, and with a different scope.
They’re all similar games, for sure, just approached from different angles. I’m not as entranced by NMS (still need to see how the procedural side of things will work) but to me there’s little difference between SC and E:D. I’m in the SC boat, since the original campaign, but got nothing against the other. I just chose where to put my eggs, and I’m not concerned by a delay in a mode that I have zero interest in (as cool as it looks).
Similar yes, identical probably not… The ultimate scope and vision Chris Roberts has for Star Citizen is insane, and as a backer even I’m not sure what that ultimate vision is anymore…
It gets as much unbridled support as it does because it’s the first project of its kind to raise $85 million dollars for an unfinished product… It’s a game being made for gamers funded by gamers… I’m remaining sceptical, there’s still the chance that this project could collapse like a house of cards.
@beeawwb Thanks for the replies peeps; makes sense that SC revitalized the genre and E:D and NMS are fruits of that revitalization.
I’m not holding my breath for any of the three, the last space sim I enjoyed was freelancer and that was almost 10 years ago. Somehow that game had just enough story going on without stopping you from making your own adventures. All the new iterations haven’t got me hooked because of the online requirement, I don’t much like any human interaction during my gaming time. Only positive for NMS above the rest is it seems big enough that you aren’t likely to bump into people frequently.
With SC are they keeping real money purchases going post-release? Or is it going to be released as a complete game with no IAP’s?
If you’re in it for a single player semblance of a story I think SC is the way to go, with the Squadron 42 campaign being developed by the UK branch of the studio. They just did a month of shooting / motion capture for that, and I’m personally excited by the prospect. I don’t think (correct me if I’m wrong!) there’s anything like that in E:D, which is focussed on the MMO-like side of things only.
I don’t think there’s any plan for the funding to continue post-release. I’m 99% positive they’ve put out statements to that effect, can try and dig them up if you like. I think they have said there will be optional IAP, but with limits to enable those without as much time to devote to the game to “catch up” – e.g. buy max of 10000 credits a month, to simulate as if you were playing and profiting like an active player. That’s just theory stuff at this stage though. They’re trying to keep it “not-pay-to-win” as much as possible.
That’s the reason why SC gathered such a passionate fan-base, because up until it’s announcement, the benchmark for space sims was Freelancer, a 10 year old game.
It’s also no coincidence that Freelancer was also made by Chris Roberts, and was the last game project he worked on before taking a break from the industry.
So, maybe that’s enough for everyone? Chris Roberts is the guy who made Freelancer.
I know that alone was/is enough for me.
Just to be clear, though SC certainly contributed to the resurgence of public interest in the genre again, both Elite: Dangerous and No Man’s Sky were in development prior to Star Citizen going public with its Kickstarter campaign.
They’ve stated that no they won’t… They’re only using the ship sales now to fund the game… I suspect they may transition to a cosmetic cash market though… People will pay out the ass to paint their ships a different colour.
Their last few high cost concept sales have been non-fighters, so they’re definitely trying to avoid any more claims of P2W… but once again, only time will tell.
Yep. In IT circles we call a project like star citizen a “death march”. A death march basically happens because the project has such badly shifting goals that makes it frusturatingly hard for the programmers to see the end in sight which completely demoralizes the team and then eventually the money runs out and everyone gets fired. Now there is a difference here, which is that RSI have a ridiculous warchest to build this game on (But not THAT ridiculous, there are games that have build less on more) , and that warchest exists *because* of those shifting goals. I hope they have some talented whipcrackers fighting management on behalf of the coders to get the goals clear and properly management, because if they DO deliver on this, this game will be amazing. But theres a lot of coders out there, including me, that are pretty skeptical about this $85 million dollar hot mess.
Has anyone seen the episode of the simpson where Homer is asked by his long lost car tycoon brother to design the perfect car, and basically homer designs a completely insane UFO looking thing that costs $100K to build and sends the company broke? That is what I fear will happen here.
Lets hope I’m wrong!
So people are surprised by this why? AC went through the same, not surprised to see another module go through it. Bet Squadron 42 is delayed as well
This just in Star Citizen Delayed and no one was at all surprised.
Kind of glad this section is being sidelined for now. When they announced the FPS module, I was scratching my head how the game had moved from Wing Commander remake into something that was trying to do and be everything at the same time.
And yes, another delay..? Not really surprised. I am a backer from the KS, so I get all the updates etc.. This update is probably in my inbox and I’ve not bothered to read it.
The full title wasn’t scheduled to release until 2016 anyway, from memory, so delays in the individual modules don’t mean that much at this point. As for the FPS module, I thought that was part of the original campaign? I remember them talking about boarding operations around the time I backed it.
Yeah boarding ops but not a full blown fps that takes you away from the core game. Oh well, time will tell. I’m sure it will still be an amazing game.
I thought boarding was the bulk of the FPS module. Did they expand the scope? I haven’t been following recent developments on Star Citizen, I usually only pay attention when a module actually comes out so I can mess around with it.
Another factor is Star Citizen timed its launch at the same time as X Rebirth. A lot of the die hard X3 players moved across to SC at that time because Rebirth was so utterly disappointing.
Also so far Elite is getting mixed reviews from people around content and balancing issues.
It’s delayed because Chris Roberts didn’t like the way it ran or some other reason, I can’t remember.
Though, the FPS module hasn’t even hit Alpha access. From the progress and videos I’ve seen of the FPS module we should be well and truly into alpha access for the customers. We don’t want our alpha being a AAA game!
I think you guys need to look up the definition of indefinitely…
I can’t see this as being a bad thing. The scope of this is getting way out of hand and I don’t think anyone wants a ‘FPS lite’ in the game.
But I really wish they’d just remake Wing Commander and get over it. I backed Star Citizen but I’ve pretty much lost interest. Their emails go to my junk mail now. I’ll play it when the final product is released and that’s it.
The fps gameplay looked pretty sub par anyway. No where near the quality the rest of the game was showing.
Delayed, and we need another 100million.. cheers.
On the other hand, Batman was not delayed. And we all know how that turned out.