Cloud Imperium Games has now raised more than half a billion dollars for the development of Star Citizen, including $100 million since last November.
As reported by Eurogamer, the space trading and combat sim – which has been in development for over a decade – now claims to have collected $500,111,757 from backers.
Star Citizen’s first Kickstarter campaign for $2 million began in October 2012, but this was just the beginning. Cloud Imperium Games has been raising more and more money over the years, totaling over $400 million just ten months ago.
However, despite this astonishing amount of money, the game is still in an alpha stage of development, with no release date in sight. For context, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt cost $81 million and took about five years to develop. Red Dead Redemption cost between $80 and $100 million and also lasted five years.
Star Citizen creator Christopher Roberts said in 2020 that the various gameplay elements promised over the years are not castles in the air, and that they wouldn’t take decades longer to implement. However, a year later, an advertising watchdog warned the studio against marketing concept ships, saying it should make it clear that it sells products that don’t yet exist.
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Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He’ll be talking about The Witcher all day long.