Machine Translation:
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.
Source (Star Citizen Tools Bluesky): https://bsky.app/profile/starcitizen.tools/post/3lwzm6lfdss2b
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.