A few extra months needed to ‘deliver something special’
There are many things about Star Citizen I fail to grasp — most notably, where is all of this money coming from? — but dogfighting I get. That’s coming as its own module for the game, but not in December as previously anticipated — it’s been delayed a couple months.
“I feel that the Dogfighting module, especially with Star Citizen‘s greatly increased profile, needs to be more polished than a typical ‘alpha,’” writes Chris Roberts. “There are a lot of eyes on the game, and more than a few people wanting us to fail. Because Dogfighting is the first module that will involve significant gameplay, it has to be good — I don’t feel that we will get a pass just because it is pre-pre alpha.” And he’s so right. Expectations are going to be out of control.
The full post is worth a read as it does a good job of explaining how the team got into a position where delaying was the best decision for Star Citizen, but here’s the relevant quote: “So we had two choices: either fork development and spend time building something that would involve throwing away work in order to meet the December deadline and deliver something that wouldn’t have the level of polish I’m happy with, or stay on course to build something that would lead directly into the finished game.”
On Friday, December 20 at 9:00am Pacific, Roberts and co. will have a two-hour livestream with updates on Squadron 42, The Hangar, and Dogfighting.
Letter from the Chairman: On Dogfighting [RSI]