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Squadron 42 Will Release in 2026 for PC with 30-40 Hours of Campaign, Prologue Gameplay Revealed
- Thread starter TxKnight7
- Start date
StereoVsn
Gold Member
I didn’t have any children when I first pledged. I have two now with one in Middle School even.
Tertullian
Member
I can't believe they unironically said it's 2 years away lol
AJUMP23
Parody of actual AJUMP23
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balls of snow
Member
Game was top of the line 5 years ago. Now we await a relic.
Bitmap Frogs
Mr. Community
Admitedly I skipped through the video, but did they only show an on-rails turret sequence as far as gameplay?
diffusionx
Gold Member
They could be on Squadron 45 by now with each game expanding but why bother when simps will throw money at them and excuse this mismanagement indefinitely.
{insert code here}
Member
Well, this just shot up to the top of my most anticipated games list. Cannot wait to play it and just seeing that gameplay was giving me some nostalgic vibes of what AAA gaming was back during the PS360 days. I can tell that the developers are putting their hearts and souls into this and if GTA 6 releases in '25 and this in '26 then WOW. I am going to be eating GOOD 
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Buggy Loop
Member
I think anytime I will see a dumb take like this, I'll add to the list
You are completely disconnected. Seeing all these marketing approved stitched together cleaned up trailers for over a decade has numbed minds.
Nobody dares showcasing a demo live in front of a crowd anymore for a reason.
In the other SC thread, you had peoples complaining "wow, pre-rendered trailers lolololol", to now "wow, crashed in a real-time demo lolololol"
They just can't win it seems.
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Gideon
Member
It's 2 games so basically 6-7 years for each = normal dev time I'd say.
digital_ghost
Member
Man you guys start the April fools jokes early.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
I just watched the on foot sections from the demo and I want to gag.
I swear half the gameplay experience is being forced to watch a silly "cinematic" animation.
Delay this $**t another 10 years please.
I swear half the gameplay experience is being forced to watch a silly "cinematic" animation.
Delay this $**t another 10 years please.
Pegasus Actual
Member
Damn last thing a friend got me (also ~10 years ago) was a pair of fucking flip flops with zero tread to where I stepped on a painted piece of pavement and it was like an ice rink and my knee wasn't right for weeks.Got this package gifted by a friend more than 10 years ago omg
Good thing is SQ42 is included.
Yeah I've got shit friends!
Buggy Loop
Member
Direct feed, no tearing!
Also with full ending! (crashed live)
Also with full ending! (crashed live)
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ShadowNate
Member
It's releasing in 2026 years from now. Set the countdown clock and start the insanity.
The presentation is quite long and scanning through it I haven't found much going on other than eye candy. Is there a timestamp during the presentation that stands out as being worth checking out?
No there was also traversing the burning ship, crawling through an engineering trench, zero-g traversal, and some FPS combat.
It was a pretty decent vertical cut showing off a variety of game play systems. The in cockpit space combat was all cinematics, but for all the shit Chris gets for the Wing Commander movie. This was better than any recent Hollywood space movie or show.
There's nothing mind blowing, but put it on 1.75 - 2.0x speed and give it a watch for 30 minutes. The little details in the ships are interesting to see and it feels like a lived in universe with people doing their own thing. The space combat sequences were also really good so at least jump to the last 20 or so minutes for the meat of the space combat. But the moving through the burning ship was cool, especially going to the bunk area and needing to crawl on the ground through collapsed bunks to get around a blocked area.
Edit: Just jumped around, it around the 37 minute make which is just after the turret sequence that I would start at.
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P:axMagellanic
Member
That was poor. Hour long cutscene and hammy acting.
Loomy
Thinks Microaggressions are Real
Until CIG proves otherwise, the only thing we have to go on are past actions. Past actions tells us that there is no reason to believe they will release a game anytime soon.
I can guarantee you the people financing Square asked them wtf was going on with FFv13/FFXV every time it appeared on the books with no release date associated with it. Same with all the other game you mentioned.
It's completely appropriate for the people funding this game to question why after almost 15 years they have no plans for a full release of the main game, and why this single player game keeps being shown off as near complete work without a release date. The people funding this game just happens to be us.
So it's not about people having their heads up their own asses. It's about people asking where's the promised return on their investment.
I should add that I bought whatever the base ship package got you in Star Citizen years ago, and have tried the game at various update milestones. So not just talking out of my ass. Talking as someone with skin in the game, so to speak.
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Buggy Loop
Member
For me the whole thing is candy. Its the epic space opera i've been waiting for since Wing commander & Freespace. Its a prologue, it's a key battle that sets stage for the rest of the game. Lots of cutscenes, yes, but again, I dig that kind of epic intro. I've never seen a space battle of that scale in videogames. I want it now.
Considering its all real-time and scales from planet (yes shot of evacuation on planet), to the space ships, to the close-ups between the UEE ships & personnel, to Vanduul ships and close up to the aliens, on a huge scale like this, is a tech marvel. To even have this possible in a space game is mind blowing.
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Lord Panda
The Sea is Always Right
I have mixed feelings about the prologue. On one hand, it’s an impressively corny, cinematic, and technologically stunning showcase, but on the other hand, it just drags on and on.
The fact that, once the gameplay finally starts, it switches to an on-rails turret shooter for a good chunk of time killed me a little inside. That section where he had to destroy the turrets on the strike frigate or whatever just seemed to go on forever. And then the kingship at the end… it made no sense. The capital ship no longer had shields, but for plot reasons they couldn’t destroy it? That felt like such a contrived plot point, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.
It felt like a movie pretending to be a game — and given Roberts’ aspirations, I’m not surprised. It reminded me a lot of Kojima and his love for endless waffle. With the touted 30-40 hours of gameplay, I can’t help but wonder how much of that will actually be cutscenes.
I had no children before kickstarting Star Citizen. I have an almost 3 year old now, and expecting another one in December. Who knows what the tally will be if and when SQ42 hits
The fact that, once the gameplay finally starts, it switches to an on-rails turret shooter for a good chunk of time killed me a little inside. That section where he had to destroy the turrets on the strike frigate or whatever just seemed to go on forever. And then the kingship at the end… it made no sense. The capital ship no longer had shields, but for plot reasons they couldn’t destroy it? That felt like such a contrived plot point, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.
It felt like a movie pretending to be a game — and given Roberts’ aspirations, I’m not surprised. It reminded me a lot of Kojima and his love for endless waffle. With the touted 30-40 hours of gameplay, I can’t help but wonder how much of that will actually be cutscenes.
I had no children before kickstarting Star Citizen. I have an almost 3 year old now, and expecting another one in December. Who knows what the tally will be if and when SQ42 hits
Ivan
Member
This has to be one of the most uninspired demos I've seen in a while...
After all these years, this doesn't look that interesting to me at all. Yes, celebrity crew is there, but facial animation looks really bad compared to some current gen stuff.
Everything about the design feels so generic, like I've already seen it a million times. It doesn't have any "magic" like old star wars or alien for example, no just most basic, boring stuff.
I feel the same about the music - I genuinely dislike it. It reminds me of the same thing in today's movies of that type. Generic, uninteresting themes over and over and that" "tension pumping " sounds.
I don't care about the development time or cost, this just doesn't look interesting to play.
Zero innovative or interesting game design aspects.
And sometimes you can't just dissect games like that, you have to look at it as a whole. Even that way, it still left me cold.
It lacks some cool elements in the design of every mechanic too. Shooting looks and sounds terrible to me. Explosions too.
I sound too negative now, but it wasn't my intention since I love games like this and will be playing this for sure when it comes out. I'm just disappointed...
After all these years, this doesn't look that interesting to me at all. Yes, celebrity crew is there, but facial animation looks really bad compared to some current gen stuff.
Everything about the design feels so generic, like I've already seen it a million times. It doesn't have any "magic" like old star wars or alien for example, no just most basic, boring stuff.
I feel the same about the music - I genuinely dislike it. It reminds me of the same thing in today's movies of that type. Generic, uninteresting themes over and over and that" "tension pumping " sounds.
I don't care about the development time or cost, this just doesn't look interesting to play.
Zero innovative or interesting game design aspects.
And sometimes you can't just dissect games like that, you have to look at it as a whole. Even that way, it still left me cold.
It lacks some cool elements in the design of every mechanic too. Shooting looks and sounds terrible to me. Explosions too.
I sound too negative now, but it wasn't my intention since I love games like this and will be playing this for sure when it comes out. I'm just disappointed...
avalonzero
Member
How far up your own ass does your head need to be to believe anything these guys present? This is a weird hill to die on at this point. The original announced release date was 10 fucking years ago.
AJUMP23
Parody of actual AJUMP23
I think they filmed it all 9 years ago. There has been a lot of technological advancement since then.
Buggy Loop
Member
Before Crytek basically found the seamless tech in 2015.
Cute
Glad they delayed
The gap between Star Citizen and a released episode 1 of SQ42 (back when it was episodes), would have been awful. Everyone would have screamed at CIG to not have waited for the better tech.
Whole bunch of armchair developers who damn them if they do, damn them if they don't.
Blink twice if Chris is holding your family hostage Buggy
Buggy Loop
Member
Am I wrong? We all know it would have happened. Episode 1 would have gotten on-rail tech with jpeg planets with nothing seamless, hidden loading times, and episode 2 or 3 would have gotten the seamless tech.
Everyone would have screamed.
Crytek found drastic game changing tech in 2015. Its literally the foundation of what this game is today, everything is around seamless space.
Let's not even add that most episodic contents have a nice start for ep1 and then belly flop afterwards. We've had that wave of episodic games years ago. They almost all lost their userbase after ep1.
Look, I'm all for calling the mismanagement and feature creep this game had years ago. Peoples are baiting with low balls such as "it was 2014", no it never was, it was not full SQ42, it was episode 1 to begin with, with completely different tech.
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Of course people would've been disappointed--Roberts promised the moon. Delivering a regular game after that is inviting backlash and turning off the money faucet. The smarter solution is to keep promising more and more while pushing back the release date until maybe someday, after the better part of one BILLION dollars in crowdfunding money and a decade and a half of dev time, one small slice of those promises can be vaguely achieved. It was a codependent relationship between an incompetent, greedy
RoadHazard
Gold Member
Why is this not just part of SC? Is it so they can sell you two incomplete games instead of just one?
Buggy Loop
Member
SQ42 was campaign was maybe 1/10th the funding compared to MMO. Yearly in the past years it surpasses the 2012-2016 fundings, SQ42 is not responsible for that. Again, sensationalist clickbait headlines such as NEAR BILLION dollars in crowdfunding money for squadron 42 is being deceitful and just baiting for internet rage. Let's ignore how much money the MMO takes in and that tens of thousands are playing daily, with the jank and all.
To this day some peoples still think Chris Roberts own a yacht, how fucked up is that? A meme of him being on a sailboat rental for a weekend became an internet fact for nearly a decade. Should we just continue to "LOL" or can I have a shot at the very least to get facts straight? I don't care if you don't believe in the projet, mismanaged, all that, fuck yea it was mismanaged, who can argue that, but the baiting is ridiculous.
Peoples want a black sheep and something easy to rage on, logic out of the window. Of all the peoples, you should know, you were targeted. Peoples to this day probably still put a tag on you. It's fucking hard to wash over internet smear campaigns eh?
When I see obvious bait with twisted facts, I try to correct. But I'm getting really tired. One liner memes are equivalent to zergs.
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CityHunter1981
Member
After over 14 years in development you would expect it to be a massive 100 hour campaign…
And how many times did they already said it’s coming. This game is just a huge fraud, just to continuously collecting money via crowdfunding…
And how many times did they already said it’s coming. This game is just a huge fraud, just to continuously collecting money via crowdfunding…
Utherellus
Member
I have an entire game script and leaked motion capture recordings that almost noone in the world have ever seen, from different parts of the game that - again, has never ever shown and curated.
But whatever floats your boat lmao.
Dafegamer
Member
Ok, was this intentional?That was stupidly boring, I set it to 2x speed and was still bored out of my mind, nothing happens for 25+ minutes.
Then 45 minutes in the damn thing crashes mid cutscene, they restart and then 15 minutes later there's some on foot gameplay again.
0 flight gameplay in the whole thing.
Then there's all the jank and screen tearing, just an awful demo/presentation.
Also this lmao wtf
clarky
Gold Member
Not saying its not a scam but a 40 hour cinematic campaign is absolutely huge for a first person shooter/space combat game.
Most games of this type come in at the 6-10 hour mark. Perhaps they might have been better aiming for that. Or Episodes or something.
Kenneth Haight
Gold Member
Feel sorry for people who continue to spend their hard earned money on this pyramid scheme.
I had a friend who told me this was going to be “the future of gaming” about 10 years ago. He spent a few hundred on some ships and shit. I had no idea what he was doing and now he admits it was all nonsense.
It’s your money though so don’t let me influence your decision.
I had a friend who told me this was going to be “the future of gaming” about 10 years ago. He spent a few hundred on some ships and shit. I had no idea what he was doing and now he admits it was all nonsense.
It’s your money though so don’t let me influence your decision.
Kenneth Haight
Gold Member
This is the IQ of a star citizen supporter. Having to explain that a decade is 10 years and being happy with that time frame
Snake29
Banned
Funny how it’s always “that friend” and not the actual person writing it on forums. Were are all these people who have refunded the game? You should expect them here hating the game as if they just can’t say goodbye and carry on with their lifes.
Yes these people created their own hate cult on reddit or somewhere else. Because deep inside they just can’t say goodbye and are just insecure. Im not saying your friend is one of them, but most of the time this is the case.
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peish
Member
This game will sell millions just coming off it's reputation. PC gamers love this type of schtick and word of mouth.
It may even take on GTA6 if they release it on consoles 2026
Too bad it wont come out in 2026, vaporware!
Graphics looking dated before 2026.
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ShadowNate
Member
Roberts was always confusing when talking about what they would release as SQ42 (depending the year and who you'd ask it'd be a prologue, a first episode, or a full game pending at least one DLC, "Behind Enemy Lines").
Isn't it the case that what they settled at is that this (the 2026 release) will be the "first episode"?
It's certainly the case that they already promised the first DLC for free to original backers who funded the game before it reached the $6 millions goal.
I mean I'm not making shit up here. If the above does not sound fishy and shady, when we're 12 years in the development and there's still only fancy looking demos to show for this and a (current date+2 years) vague promise of release, then I don't know what to tell you.
Snake29
Banned
This game will sell millions just coming off it's reputation. PC gamers love this type of schtick and word of mouth.
It may even take on GTA6 if they release it on consoles 2026
Too bad it wont come out in 2026, vaporware!
Graphics looking dated before 2026.
What are you trying to show? Some youtube zoomed in compression mess? Nice try lol.
No game at this scale has this tech. You might have missed the other panels. No game has this advanced graphics and tech combined on universal scale.
You can clearly see the people who have never seen something from Star Citizen with their own eyes, they only driveby.