It’s a persistent online universe that’s due for launch in 2014. There’s a dynamic economy and open-world, says Roberts, teasing it’s a blend of his previous creations. It’ll support Oculus Rift.
That’s the name of that VR headset looking to dazzle us. Star Citizen revolves around some big political ruckus in space, inspired by the decline of the Roman Empire.
As the player we’ll be concerned with Squadron 42, which is a kind of space exploring Foreign Legion, and they carry the reputation of getting near impossible missions accomplished. Our goal is apparently to get accepted within the ranks of 42. Chris Roberts promises micro updates will hit post-launch, adding content like new star systems and missions.
The studio, Cloud Imperium Games Corporation, is still busy putting together Star Citizen’s core mechanics. However third-person and cockpit views are definitely in and space ships are subject to a procedural physics system, so thrusters act realistically. Roberts is pretty excited for Oculus Rift-powered dogfights.
”I’ve never made any game I’ve made in my life because I’m like, oh, I’m going to sell a million or two million or three million copies and make lots of money,” said Roberts. ”The reason I built Wing Commander was I saw Star Wars as a kid and I always wanted to be the hotshot star fighter and save the galaxy, and not just watch it but go and do it.”
”What I’m building now is something I’m missing. I’ve always had high-end PCs and played PC games, but I also have consoles. Quite frankly, most of the time I’ll play the game on a console because I know they built the game for the console. I think there’s a fair number of people like me who have PCs and consoles and do what I do. I’m not going to play Call of Duty on my PC. I’m going to play it on my console because that’s what I feel like it was built for.”
PC gaming is strong thanks to communities like Steam: ”There are about 40 million people on Steam. PC gamers aren’t getting the love. It’s an open platform. It’s changing all the time. It’s always creatively interesting and there’s no-one controlling what you can or can’t do, which is a problem on the closed console platforms.”
”The PC gaming business is still a pretty strong valid business, but it hasn’t been getting a lot of love recently. I want to come back. That’s where I made my name. PC is the place where a lot of great games were started. Even a lot of the top console franchises started on the PC. I wan’t to do my part. I’m a PC owner. I’m a PC game player and I’m proud of it. I’m going to stand up and be counted.”
Star Citizen is being accomplished without a publisher, and receives its backing from private investors but he’ll need to pander to some crowd funding to ensure his team can finish the game. Roberts need to raise between 2 to 4 million dollars to keep his private investors confident in the space sim. Overall it should cost between 12 to 14 million.
Veteran designer Chris Roberts isn’t using Kickstarter because its ”an extra step between the developer and the community”, so instead they’ll be running their own crowd funding initiative directly through their website; robertsspaceindustries.com. Check it out now to pledge your fiscal support and learn more.
Watch the video below for some incredibly mouth-watering in-game peeks at Star Citizen.
