Cloud Imperium Games" in-development sci-fi RPG Star Citizen is well-known for its absolutely massive crowdfunding campaign that still raises millions, over a decade into the project. Earlier today, the official funding tracker for the independent developer crossed another massive and record-breaking milestone.
Less than a year ago, the title passed half a billion dollars. 11 months, and $100 million later, the community has now raised over $600 million dollars in total for its ongoing development.
Just in 2023, May turned out to be the most active month for the studio"s funding efforts. According to the tracker, almost $20 million of more funding came in from the community during that period alone to boost the numbers heavily. This was probably due to the massive free-to-play event that was active during that timeframe offering access to almost all of the game"s space ships and vehicles to try without having to pledge any cash for packages.
2023 has also seen the sci-fi game reach more of its development goals. In March, Cloud Imperium Games delivered Alpha 3.18 as the largest update yet for the title. It carried long-time-promised features like Persistent Entity Streaming, salvage mechanics, a cargo rework, and a lot more.
Then in May, the next quarterly content drop (Alpha 3.19) carried a Lorville city overhaul, new player onboarding improvements, and upgraded tractor beam interactions, among other changes.
Unfortunately, a release date is still missing from the massive project, which includes both a full-fledged campaign with high-profile actors and the persistant multiplayer RPG portion that"s currently in alpha.
The roadmap for Star Citizen"s future updates shows Alpha 3.20 for the Persistant Universe portion coming very soon. Slated for the third quarter of 2023, it will be carrying a brand-new low-earth-orbit station above Crusader, new cargo interactions, missions, plus handling improvements to ground vehicles. A look at how the game"s development is progressing can be seen by heading to Cloud Imperium Games" progress tracker here.