In development since 2012, one of the most expensive video games in history will finally see the light of day but not right away… With a colossal budget of nearly 730 million dollars (662 million euros), players are d I’m already impatient.
What is this video game with an astronomical budget?
The development of video game blockbusters can cost tens, or even hundreds of millions of dollars, as was the case for Grand Theft Auto V or Red Dead Redemption II. The cost centers of the biggest games are many and varied, including development teams, celebrity actors’ fees, and marketing budgets.
It’s a title that aims to be of this caliber that we’re talking about today: Squadron 42. It constitutes the single-player campaign of Star Citizen. Between them, they have a colossal budget of $730 million.
During CitizenCon, their annual convention, the developers of Squadron 42 have just announced that the title would be released in 2026.
They also did a live demo of the game’s prologue. A session which was rather convincing in terms of staging and epic atmosphere but a little less in terms of technical stability. It’s very risky to do a live demo of a game that is not finished, and we had new proof 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 play which constitutes a sort of tutorial and establishment of the general context with therefore numerous cutscenes. The full demo is 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, Squadron 42 was part of the crowdfunding campaign from Star Citizen. Given the success of this campaign which far exceeded the initial $500,000 desired, it was then separated to become an independent game. The two titles have many similarities, but also differences.
- Different state of development : Both games have been in development for several years. Star Citizen is already available in alpha (non-final) version, while Squadron 42 is not.
- Same universe : Both games take place 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 exclusively single-player campaign set in this universe.
- Same gameplay, but different gameplay : the two games share 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 varied activities: from space exploration to trading, mining and combat in a persistent online world. For its part, Squadron 42 is an exclusively 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, famous for his work on games all set in space:
- the Wing Commander series in the 1990s
- StarLancer in 2000 (rated 18/20 on JV)
- Freelancer in 2003 (rated 17/20 on JV)
The team working on Squadron 42 and Star Citizen is made up of more than 1,100 people across CIG’s five studios in the United States, Canada, England and Germany.
What is the starting scenario of Squadron 42?
Squadron 42 takes place 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 recruit to the UEE (United Empire of Earth) navy. On board a large combat ship, you will start at the bottom as a simple gunner and then work your way up to become a pilot. You will often be deployed to face the Vanduul, the most hostile alien species.
Squadron 42 is a first-person game (like in Cyberpunk 2077 for example) with the possibility of switching to third-person view. But the title is not really intended to be played with the latter because we then lose the HUD information. Squadron 42 is both:
- an adventure game in which you progress the story by speaking with the characters you meet. Cutscenes using the graphics engine are also present.
- an FPS in which you shoot your opponents using various weapons
- a space simulation in which you pilot warships. The level of realism is nevertheless not at the level of a demanding simulation since the goal is for a majority of players to be able to pilot. The piloting could therefore be described as “easy to play but difficult to master”.
Who are the known actors who participated in Squadron 42?
Squadron 42 has a prestigious cast with many famous actors that the player meets throughout his journey:
- Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker dans Star Wars)
- Gary Oldman (Sirius Black dans Harry Potter)
- Gillian Anderson (Scully dans 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 dans 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 the music of Squadron 42?
The music for Squadron 42 is mainly composed by Geoff Zanelli, known for his work with Hans Zimmer on Pearl Harbor or on the Pirates of the Caribbean films, of which he also composed the fifth part Salazar’s Vengeance alone. He then continued to work for Disney, notably composing the music for Maleficent: The Power 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 necessary to play Star Citizen pleasantly as well as data from the official page Telemetry which references the performance of Star Citizen player configurations, we can legitimately estimate that the recommended configuration of Squadron 42 should look like this:
- Intel Core i5 12400 ou 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 because it will be quite linear and takes place in better controlled and optimized environments.
