Henry Cavill jumps into the cockpit for Squadron 42: He plays a central figure in the story campaign.
As part of CitizenCon there was finally news about Squadron 42, the single-player release of the major space MMO project Star Citizen.
You could see the spectacular start of the story campaign, a few unexpected crash error messages and a hotly anticipated year! Here is the most important information in brief.
- Release: Squadron 42 is scheduled for release in 2026. Chris Roberts, creator of Star Citizen and head of the development studio Cloud Imperium Games, said he and his team are confident that they will be able to meet the deadline.
- Playing time: For the first time, the size of Squadron 42 was quantified more precisely. Accordingly, the campaign should last between 30 and 40 hours for a “normal run”.
- Gameplay: The extensive presentation lasted one hour and 15 minutes and shows the complete intro, tutorial and Squadron 42’s first mission in its entirety.
Check it out here:
1:16:12
Over an hour of gameplay from Squadron 42: Henry Cavill becomes a fighter pilot in Star Citizen
Crashed live in front of the audience
Squadron 42 was played live in front of an audience at CitizenCon. In addition to stuttering and bugs, there were also crashes: the game crashed suddenly in two places and the developers had to restart at the last checkpoint (the relevant points were removed from the recording above).
According to a Cloud Imperium developer on site, the computer used was to blame for the crashes. However, the incident in and of itself is not a sign of poor quality: unfinished alpha versions of games usually tend to crash.
The entire SC range for solo players
The prologue shown begins after character creation with an appearance by Ryan Enright. The commander of Squadron 42 will be embodied by Witcher star Henry Cavill
In the corridors of a ship we meet this Vanduul Kireger. Hand-to-hand combat ensues.
However, the simulated combat training comes to an abrupt end when the United Empire of Earth’s fleet is surprised by an advance by the Vanduul – a deadly alien species with advanced technology.
A dramatic battle ensues, with our character traveling on foot, in the cockpit of spaceships, on board guns or even in the weightlessness of space. GameStar user Sir Stubert provides you with a comprehensive summary of all scenes in our forum. Thank you very much at this point!
Squadron 42 relies on the same technical framework as its big MMO brother and offers physics-based atmosphere in real time, seamless transitions from planet to space, global illumination via ray tracing, as well as DLSS, FSR and XeSS support.
We can move freely on board the huge Javelin and get to know the crew.
Still on track for records
Squadron 42 is developed by the developers referred to as “feature complete”.so theoretically it can be fully played through. The team wants to use the last year before launch exclusively for fine-tuning and fixing bugs, they say.
Squadron 42 was first announced with a crowdfunding campaign in October 2021 – exactly 9 years after the Kickstarter campaign for the main Star Citizen game began.
Combined, the ambitious MMO and the solo spinoff have received around $729 million in backing to date.
This secures Star Citizen second place among the most financially successful digital crowdfunding projects ever and an entry in the Guinness Book of Records.
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