One of the most affordable video games of all time is finally released

Gaming News One of the most affordable video games of all time is finally released

What is this video game with an astronomical budget?

Blockbuster video games can cost tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars to develop, as was the case with Grand Theft Auto V or Red Dead Redemption II. The biggest games’ cost centers are many and varied, including development teams, celebrity actor fees, and marketing budgets.

It is a title that is said to be of the caliber that we are talking about today: Squadron 42. It is the single-player campaign of Star Citizen. Together they have a whopping budget of $730 million.

During CitizenCon, their annual convention, the developers of Squadron 42 just announced that the title will be released in 2026.

They also did a live demo of the game’s prologue. A session that was quite c onvincing in terms of staging and epic atmosphere, but somewhat less so in terms of technical stability. It’s very risky to do a live demo of a game that isn’t ready yet, and we had new evidence of this because there were two crashes in the middle of the demo.

As for the content shown during this demo, we were treated to the presentation of the first hour of the game, which is a kind of tutorial and establishes the general context with therefore numerous cutscenes. The full demo can be found at 7:35:00 in the video below.

What does Squadron 42 have to do with Star Citizen?

Squadron 42 and Star Citizen are two separate games, although they share the same universe and are developed by the same teams. Originally in 2012, season 42 was part of the Crowdfunding campaign from Star Citizen. Given the success of this campaign, which far exceeded the original $500,000 target, it was then separated off to become a standalone game. The two titles have many similarities, but also differences.

• Different level of development : Both games have been in development for several years. Star Citizen is already available in alpha version (not final), but Squadron 42 is not.

• Same universe : Both games are set in the same science fiction universe, set several centuries in the future. Star Citizen is a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game, while Squadron 42 is the single-player campaign set exclusively in this universe.

• Same gameplay but different gameplay : The two games have the same gameplay base: you control your character and your ship in the same way. On the other hand, they differ in their gameplay loops. Star Citizen is a massively multiplayer game with diverse activities: from space exploration to trading, mining and fighting in a persistent online world. For its part, Squadron 42 is a purely single-player game that offers a narrative experience with scripted missions focused on combat on foot and aboard spaceships.

Who is developing Squadron 42?

Like Star Citizen, Squadron 42 is developed and published by Cloud Imperium Games (CIG), a company founded in 2012 by Chris Roberts, known for his work on games all set in space:

• the Wing Commander series in the 1990s
• StarLancer in 2000 (Rated 18/20 at JV)
• Freelancer in 2003 (Rated 17/20 at JV)

The team working on Squadron 42 and Star Citizen consists of more than 1,100 employees across CIG’s five studios in the United States, Canada, England and Germany.

What is Squadron 42’s starting scenario?

Squadron 42 is set 900 years in the future, in a universe where humanity has conquered numerous planetary systems and encountered various alien species. You play as a young UEE (United Empire of Earth) Navy recruit. Aboard a large combat ship, you start at the bottom as a simple gunner and work your way up to pilot. They are often used against the Vanduul, the most hostile alien species.

Squadron 42 is a first-person game (such as in Cyberpunk 2077) with the ability to switch to the third-person perspective. However, the title is not actually intended to be played with the latter, as we will then lose the HUD information. Season 42 is both:

• an adventure game in which you advance the story by speaking to the characters you meet. Cutscenes using the graphics engine are also present.
• an FPS in which you shoot your opponents with different weapons
• a space simulation in which you control warships. However, the realism is not at the level of a sophisticated simulation, as the goal is for a majority of players to be able to control. Piloting could therefore be described as “easy to play but difficult to master”.

Who are the famous actors who took part in season 42?

Squadron 42 features a prestigious cast with many famous actors that the player meets throughout his journey:

• Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker in Star Wars)
• Gary Oldman (Sirius Black in Harry Potter)
• Gillian Anderson (Scully in The X-Files)
• Henry Cavill (Geralt of Rivia in seasons 1 to 3 of The Witcher)
• John Rhys-Davies (Gimli in The Lord of the Rings)
• Liam Cunningham (Davos in Game of Thrones)
• Andy Serkis (Klaw in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Black Panther)
• Ben Mendelsohn (Orson Krennic in Star Wars Rogue One)

Who is behind Squadron 42’s music?

The music for “Squadron 42” comes mainly from Geoff Zanelli, known for his work with Hans Zimmer on “Pearl Harbor” or the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films, of which he also composed the fifth part “Salazar’s Revenge”. He then continued to work for Disney, notably composing the music for Maleficent: The Force of Evil.

What machine will Squadron 42 be released on?

Squadron 42 was only announced for PC. The hardware requirements will also be quite high. By extrapolating from the configuration required to play Star Citizen comfortably, as well as data from the official site Telemetry which relates to the performance of Star Citizen player configurations, we can rightly assume that the recommended configuration of Squadron 42 should be as follows:

• Intel Core i5 12400 or AMD Ryzen 5 5600
• 32 Go to RAM
• GeForce RTX 2070 or Radeon RX 6600
• SSD required

In addition, we must keep in mind that Squadron 42 should be a little less demanding than Star Citizen since it will be quite linear and set in more controlled and optimized environments.