CIG Montréal will work on refining the online game Star Citizen , which has been available in a pre-official version since 2017, but whose official launch version ( Star Citizen 1.0 ) is now promised for 2027 or 2028.
“The name Turbulent was more associated with our technology solutions than with video games,” explains Benoît Beauséjour, Turbulent’s co-founder who is now CTO of Cloud Imperium Group (CIG). “To attract specialized staff, our video game group will now be called CIG Montreal.”
CIG Montréal is indeed looking to increase its workforce to some 150 employees. Its ambition is to become one of the largest studios in Montreal. Turbulent, for its part, will continue to exist for web projects, including the updating of the National Bank and Ricardo websites.
Star Citizen is a fully crowdfunded, massively multiplayer online first-person space simulation game. Chris Roberts, co-founder and CEO of CIG, says he’s raised just over $1 billion for his game from players, some of whom are growing impatient and eager to see the finished product.
“It allows us to do things without imposing the framework of a typical video game studio,” Chris Roberts said in an interview with La Presse from his home in Los Angeles. “The players who fund us expect the best game, period. We don’t have to streamline, cut jobs, or change our business model.”
The British entrepreneur knows the Quebec metropolis well, having participated in the filming of feature films there, at a time when he was taking a break from video games. He appreciates the city and the talent of its video game specialists.
He planned to be there to personally inaugurate the renaming of his studio, but the turbulence at Air Canada decided otherwise.
On the way to the “final” version of Star Citizen , CIG Montreal plans to launch the single-player game Squadron 42 next year , with a more conventional narrative and set in the same universe as the latter. Several new features introduced by Squadron 42 will then be used to enhance Star Citizen .
Squadron 42 will launch at a point in 2026 where it won’t be overshadowed by the most anticipated game of the next few months, Grand Theft Auto VI . “We’re hoping it’ll be almost as big an event. Other than GTA 6 , it’s probably the biggest-budget AAA game,” says Chris Roberts.
Star Citizen already has over a million returning players every month. In total, at least 25 million people have played it at least once. This should help CIG successfully market Squadron 42 , as many of these players are eagerly awaiting the new title.
Others might be drawn to the formula or the characters. “It’s Top Gun meets Star Wars ,” says Chris Roberts.
Throughout the action, players will be able to rely on sidekicks who take on the features of well-known actors, including Gary Oldman, Mark Hamill, and Gillian Anderson. The voices and gestures of the three actors were digitized in the studio to create realistic avatars.
In addition to Mr. Beauséjour, Turbulent’s other co-founder Marc Beaudet and partner Claire Buffet have taken on new roles at CIG. The former will lead the studios in Montreal, Manchester, England, Austin, Texas, and Frankfurt, Germany. Ms. Buffet becomes head of operations and human resources for CIG’s North American offices.
I mean, vaporware would require it to fail to manifest. There is a game. You can play it right now. Has it delivered on everything they promised? Absolutely not. But that was never the definition of vaporware. And, paradoxically, what’s there, despite being far reduced from the theoretical scope, is also one the most technically impressive games ever made. Entire planets in a complete solar system that you can traverse without a single loading screen. Not even a disguised one. It’s also, y’know, a buggy janky mess that still lacks many core gameplay features.
Like, there’s so much that you could legitimately criticise about Star Citizen that resorting to the both meaningless and innacurate claim of vaporware just shows an extreme lack of imagination. If you want to be critical go for it, but surely you can come up with something more coherent than that?
The other commenter, and Roberts in that quote, were talking about Squadron 42, which so far has failed to manifest itself outside of trailers. It’s original planned release window was in 2014, then delayed to 2020, and now 2026.
I mess with SC and S42 every few years, have access from the kickstarter from way back when.
They’re fine. They’re even neat. But Elite Dangerous gives 90% of what their original promises were and has much more demonstrable development progress. Planetary systems without a loading screen is not as impressive as it was in the early 2010s. Kerbal Space Program was created and died since then.
Who cares. If it does fully release I’m sure plenty of people will give it a proper go, until then it will remain the somehow incredibly profitable meme that it is.
We’re like 10 years after the last date when “it’ll release soon, trust us” deserved any kind of trust.
It would make little sense for them to release a final version of this game, given that they’ve made Saudi prince money from a perpetual alpha and in-game assets you have to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for. They’d never tie-off the areola on this big fat milker.
I don’t believe they will even release SQ42 by that date, less alone the MMO. I knew the online part has ‘issues’, to put it mildly, but I really thought I’d live to at least get a decent singleplayer game out of my passionate backing more than a fucking decade ago
I think Chris should just go back to… well, whatever he’s doing these days and not talk to the press until either of the games finally releases. There were so many promises, dates and pledges that nothing he says has any value at this point. Not to mention the delusions in some of the things he says here.
Let the games do the talking and just watch from sidelines until then, please.
“It allows us to do things without imposing the framework of a typical video game studio,” Chris Roberts said in an interview with La Presse from his home in Los Angeles. “The players who fund us expect the best game, period. We don’t have to streamline, cut jobs, or change our business model.”
This is false. I am honestly surprised about the cavalier attitude with the truth.
So if it is released, would it be fair to allow “no question asked” refunds on all cash shop items that are in still in JPEG form or de facto don’t work?
Sure, but if SC is actually released, it is only fair to provide a no questions asked refund policy for JPEGs and non-functional cash shop items. Is it not?
At any rate, this discussion is moot, because SC is not released as BlameTheAntifa claims. The overwhelming majority of marketed gameplay, content simply doesn’t exist and a large part of the cash items are either broken or borderline non-functional.
I don’t understand, are you saying they should provide refunds for customers beyond 30 days? The game is accessible, and nothing that is in concept is available to purchase outside of a couple times a year and they are clearly marked as such.
They also allow anyone to return all store bought items for credit forever, and you can swap around to a different package if they put things on sale. Like it’s a pretty decent system, I don’t know exactly what you’d expect to be improved?
If the game is formally released, it is reasonable to provide refunds (irrespective of purchase date) for cash shop items that don’t exist or don’t work.
I kind of wish that Chris Roberts would just take the hint and STFU about release dates for SQ42/SC. There were so many broken promises that any trust that they will hit targets is gone.
I can at least say that, based purely off of what I’ve seen of their gameplay trailers, 2026 is a more realistic release date for Squadron 42 that any of the previous target dates were. The question isn’t if it’s going to be finished by then, it will be if they are going to release it in a playable state at that time.
2027-2028 for Star Citizen is completely unrealistic. The game is nowhere near finished enough to consider that a date that will stick, even if you get all the people working on SQ42 to move over to SC after it eventually releases, the extra manpower can’t make up for the huge hole they’ve dug themselves into. They still have a years-long backlog of content to produce and show no sign of slowing down on offering new pledges. When they catch up with releasing all of the ships that people have paid money for and 10 years later still have nothing to show for it, then we can talk about release dates - ones that give enough time for proper bug fixing, polish, and gameplay balance. 2 or 3 years from now ain’t it.
There are also contractual issue to consider. Their investors have a “one-sided” put option in 2028 that might force them to “release” SC even if 80% of the marketed gameplay doesn’t exist and large number of cash items are de facto non-functional.
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It’s vaporware meets a cult.
I mean, vaporware would require it to fail to manifest. There is a game. You can play it right now. Has it delivered on everything they promised? Absolutely not. But that was never the definition of vaporware. And, paradoxically, what’s there, despite being far reduced from the theoretical scope, is also one the most technically impressive games ever made. Entire planets in a complete solar system that you can traverse without a single loading screen. Not even a disguised one. It’s also, y’know, a buggy janky mess that still lacks many core gameplay features.
Like, there’s so much that you could legitimately criticise about Star Citizen that resorting to the both meaningless and innacurate claim of vaporware just shows an extreme lack of imagination. If you want to be critical go for it, but surely you can come up with something more coherent than that?
The other commenter, and Roberts in that quote, were talking about Squadron 42, which so far has failed to manifest itself outside of trailers. It’s original planned release window was in 2014, then delayed to 2020, and now 2026.
I mess with SC and S42 every few years, have access from the kickstarter from way back when.
They’re fine. They’re even neat. But Elite Dangerous gives 90% of what their original promises were and has much more demonstrable development progress. Planetary systems without a loading screen is not as impressive as it was in the early 2010s. Kerbal Space Program was created and died since then.
Who cares. If it does fully release I’m sure plenty of people will give it a proper go, until then it will remain the somehow incredibly profitable meme that it is.
We’re like 10 years after the last date when “it’ll release soon, trust us” deserved any kind of trust.
It would make little sense for them to release a final version of this game, given that they’ve made Saudi prince money from a perpetual alpha and in-game assets you have to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for. They’d never tie-off the areola on this big fat milker.
I don’t believe they will even release SQ42 by that date, less alone the MMO. I knew the online part has ‘issues’, to put it mildly, but I really thought I’d live to at least get a decent singleplayer game out of my passionate backing more than a fucking decade ago
Dude where they are at now is the business model. Its released. This is the game.
Big “the purpose of a system is what it does now” energy
Big “I buy digital spaceships for 300 dollars” energy
I think Chris should just go back to… well, whatever he’s doing these days and not talk to the press until either of the games finally releases. There were so many promises, dates and pledges that nothing he says has any value at this point. Not to mention the delusions in some of the things he says here.
Let the games do the talking and just watch from sidelines until then, please.
This is false. I am honestly surprised about the cavalier attitude with the truth.
Star Citizen Devs Confirm Some Layoffs As Part Of A ‘Restructuring,’ Relocation Appears To Be A Factor (Feb 2024)
Star Citizen Developer Hit With More Layoffs (Nov 2024)
What they mean is they don’t have to do layoffs to please some publisher’s exec, they have the luxury of doing these things for their own greed.
“We don’t have to (but we do anyway)”
So … never.
And the star citizen fans are claiming the game is released lol
You can download it and play it. “Released” is something of a misnomer when it comes to software.
So if it is released, would it be fair to allow “no question asked” refunds on all cash shop items that are in still in JPEG form or de facto don’t work?
Pretty sure you can refund the game in 30 days already.
Sure, but if SC is actually released, it is only fair to provide a no questions asked refund policy for JPEGs and non-functional cash shop items. Is it not?
At any rate, this discussion is moot, because SC is not released as BlameTheAntifa claims. The overwhelming majority of marketed gameplay, content simply doesn’t exist and a large part of the cash items are either broken or borderline non-functional.
I don’t understand, are you saying they should provide refunds for customers beyond 30 days? The game is accessible, and nothing that is in concept is available to purchase outside of a couple times a year and they are clearly marked as such.
They also allow anyone to return all store bought items for credit forever, and you can swap around to a different package if they put things on sale. Like it’s a pretty decent system, I don’t know exactly what you’d expect to be improved?
If the game is formally released, it is reasonable to provide refunds (irrespective of purchase date) for cash shop items that don’t exist or don’t work.
Star Citizen is a scam.
This has the same energy as BSG saying Tarkov is 1.0 release ready in November of this year XD
I kind of wish that Chris Roberts would just take the hint and STFU about release dates for SQ42/SC. There were so many broken promises that any trust that they will hit targets is gone.
I can at least say that, based purely off of what I’ve seen of their gameplay trailers, 2026 is a more realistic release date for Squadron 42 that any of the previous target dates were. The question isn’t if it’s going to be finished by then, it will be if they are going to release it in a playable state at that time.
2027-2028 for Star Citizen is completely unrealistic. The game is nowhere near finished enough to consider that a date that will stick, even if you get all the people working on SQ42 to move over to SC after it eventually releases, the extra manpower can’t make up for the huge hole they’ve dug themselves into. They still have a years-long backlog of content to produce and show no sign of slowing down on offering new pledges. When they catch up with releasing all of the ships that people have paid money for and 10 years later still have nothing to show for it, then we can talk about release dates - ones that give enough time for proper bug fixing, polish, and gameplay balance. 2 or 3 years from now ain’t it.
There are also contractual issue to consider. Their investors have a “one-sided” put option in 2028 that might force them to “release” SC even if 80% of the marketed gameplay doesn’t exist and large number of cash items are de facto non-functional.
Does SQ42 even have a concrete release date?
Yes, the release date is N + 2 years. With N being the current year.
I’ll believe it when I see it. This guy lies more than Peter Molyneux.