We saw a brief trailer of Star Citizen's singleplayer efforts, Squadron 42, earlier this week. But how's the broader playable universe coming along?

In a move that drew almost immediate criticism, Cloud Imperium Games announced it will be charging just over $30 ($US22) to watch this year's festival for all things Star Citizen.

German game publisher Crytek is suing Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) for breaching contract and infringing its copyright, asking for a jury trial to determine the value of damages.

If you want the simplest summation of how things are coming along with the gargantuan project that is Star Citizen, here's 45 minutes from Cloud Imperium Games' presentation at Gamescom without annoying commentary or bugs.

If you've been holding out for alpha 3.0 of Star Citizen, you'll need to wait a little while longer.

In a move that isn't hugely surprising given the developer's announced support for Linux and Windows 7, a Star Citizen developer has confirmed that the game will be dropping support for DirectX entirely going forward in favour of the Vulkan graphics renderer.

It's almost getting to the point where I'm starting to wonder if Star Citizen is actually a blockbuster Hollywood film and not a game.

An increase of 8 players on the surface of things doesn't sound like a whole lot on paper. But in the wider context of the Star Citizen universe, and the gargantuan process that is its development, it's an important achievement.

One of the coolest things I saw during the Elite: Dangerous was the way people were taking advantage of TrackIR to look around the various menus and sides of their ship. It looked awesome, but most importantly it looked incredibly natural. It looked like what you'd be doing in space.

Understandably, people have been calling for TrackIR to be officially supported in Star Citizen as well. There were workarounds to get it going before, but it hasn't been officially supported. But a Cloud Imperium Games developer has confirmed that it will be -- even if nobody is working on it right now.

It's only available to a select few (thousand) on the public test universe for now, but the deployment of Star Citizen's Alpha 2.0 has set certain sectors of the 'Verse buzzing -- and for good reason.

It was bound to happen eventually, but considering no other game is even close to having this much support this early in its life it would be remiss not to tip one's hat to Chris Roberts and co.

I'm not sure that it was entirely necessary to play through the entirety of the original Wing Commander but since that's what I'm doing right now, Cloud Imperium Games have certainly provided me with a pretty handy tutorial.

The brewing battle between Derek Smart and Cloud Imperium Games has been amusing to watch, as much for the potential ramifications for Star Citizen and crowdfunded games as the barbs traded between both parties.

That's only ramped up recently with the publication of a letter from CIG's lawyers to Derek Smart's attorneys, which goes directly for the jugular by attacking Smart's record as a developer, credibility and truthfulness.

Derek Smart has been butting heads with Cloud Imperium Games for a while -- and he's not backing away any time soon, if his latest blog post is to be believed.

On September 17, 2013, Star Citizen director Chris Roberts wrote a public letter in celebration of a milestone achievement: He and his team had raised a whopping $US19 million from fans, significantly more than any other crowdfunding project in history.

Today Chris Roberts showed off three portions of his space game to be/end all space games, Star Citizen. Portions of the demo were definitely impressive, but the game's still got a ways to go.

Star Citizen -- the crowdfunded space game that's pulled in $US85 million and counting -- has been making progress in small steps, not giant leaps. Fans are starting to get worried. Recently, creator Chris Roberts tried to assuage their fears.

As Star Citizen's development continues and its war chest inflates exponentially (and sometimes comically), it has collected a fair number of critics who feel the game will never reach its lofty goals -- if it gets released at all. It's gotten too wild however for the game's director, Ben Lesnick, who recently decided to tackle things head on with a rather long forum post.

While we're still waiting to see how Star Citizen turns out as a whole, Chris Roberts and crew continue to prance out impressive bits of the ambitious crowd-funded space sim, like this lovely video of bits being blown off spaceships.