Image via Roberts Space Industries
It’ll probably never even get to 1.0.
|
Star Citizen is nowhere near release, even after spending almost 14 years in development. It’s now almost old enough to go to high school, and yet we’re still longing to see any sort of accurate release date. And while that’s probably familiar to many of you, some players are only now learning of how undeveloped Star Citizen actually is.
“I didn’t realize how dire the state of Star Citizen was,” says the title of a Reddit post made by user CapytanHook, who heard of Star Citizen and its decade-and-a-half-long development journey, but never actually understood what state it’s actually in.
“It’s just so incomplete and lifeless,” they said, adding that “missions are painfully repetitive,” that there are many bugs, that “ground PVE combat is a joke,” and so on and so forth. While it does look amazing and has great potential, Star Citizen really does need more time in the oven, which begs the question of whether the oven’s been on for the past 14 years at all.
Those responding to the post parroted much of the sentiment that’s been surrounding Star Citizen for years now, that is, if you’re not part of the community that forked over $935 million since 2012.
They called it a scam, a glorified tech demo, and a game that’ll probably never see the light of day because its “dream” is as much of a product as the game itself. It’s a project that thrives on the “what if” and the “what is to come” rather than something made to release with a set of established features.
The promise is the key here, and it’ll probably keep growing so long as people believe in it.
However, even those who did at some point back the game up and trust its potential didn’t have the best things to say. One user indicated that Star Citizen should “add more features to a functional stable core,” rather than “adding more and more stuff to a house of cards barely holding together as it is.” Others agreed with the sentiment and offered comments not unlike the one outlined in the initial post.
So what is the future of Star Citizen, then? To be completely honest, I can’t really tell. Squadron 42 might come out in the next couple of years, maybe, to try and justify all the money it has spent on A-list Hollywood actors, but as for Star Citizen itself, I fail to see it ever releasing in any real capacity.
It might get a shadow launch that’s 1.0-but-not-really, one that continues the impression and the promise of the “dream” while actually being out there on the market and on platforms like Steam. However, that is still likely a decade away if it ever comes, so I wouldn’t hold my breath.
And it’s a shame, truly, because some of the technologies developed for Star Citizen itself (especially server tech) are actually impressive, though likely forever stuck between a rock and a hard place at Cloud Imperium Games.
Published: Jan 25, 2026 12:53 pm