Remember not too long ago, we told you that Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts would be making a triumphant return to gaming, now that the tools to bring his expansive space vision to life is available. We’ve finally got some details on the game.
Called Star Citizen, the PC-only space sim is still in the early stages, but has been under development for the past year. As many of you guessed, it is going to be crowd-funded, but Roberts is eschewing Kickstarter, and doing the begging through his own website.
It wont, however, as some of you surmised, be a free-to-play or subscription based game. Nope, it’ll be a one-time purchase affair, although there will be micro-transactions using in-game credits available for ship customisation.
“In recent years, game designers have stopped innovating and pushing the boundaries of what you can do in this genre,” said Roberts on his site. . “I plan on bringing that kind of development mentality back into PC gaming and space sims in particular.
“There is a lot of noise out there regarding social and mobile games right now, and I think PC gamers are feeling a little left out of the mix. But the PC is still incredibly capable of presenting an experience that doesn’t take a back seat to any other platform out there, including consoles. With my game, I want PC gamers to stand up, be counted and get excited again about all the great experiences their computer can deliver.”
Gamers, especially those of the old-school are incredibly excited, but publishers aren’t – which is one reason the game’s being crowd-funded.
“For one, this route takes the traditional game publisher out of the mix and enables us to take the millions of dollars normally used by publishers for a triple-A title and plow them right back into developing the game,” he said. “Secondly, using our own crowd funding mechanism allows us to reach out to our international fans, who have been devoted followers of my games in the past.
“Thirdly, going direct gets us much closer to our fans and allows us to focus more on the community side, create more updates for our fans and directly interact with them as we are making the game.”
Here’s the game’s reveal trailer, followed by an extended cut showing some rather delightful SPACESHIPS! generated in real time within the game’s engine. Enjoy.
Last Updated: October 11, 2012
