Space sim Squadron 42 is "feature-complete" and gunning for Starfield's lunch with massive new video

thingsiplay@kbin.social to Gaming@beehaw.org – 108 points – Space sim Squadron 42 is "feature-complete" and gunning for Starfield's lunch with massive new video
rockpapershotgun.com

Squadron 42 is the single player campaign of Star Citizen, that is supposed to launch as a separate game. It's basically a small portion of Star Citizen, but with a story and ending. I'm still not confident; waited too long for that.

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It's been 11 long years since the unveiling of Squadron 42, Star Citizen's singleplayer campaign

It’s basically a small portion of Star Citizen

"As we move into the polishing phase...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Nukem_Forever

On May 24, 2011, Gearbox announced that Duke Nukem Forever had "gone gold" after 15 years.[16] It holds the Guinness world record for the longest development for a video game, at 14 years and 44 days,[17] though this period was exceeded in 2022 by Beyond Good and Evil 2.[18]

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-protracted-game-development/

I assume that the reason that the Guiness Book of World Records doesn't accept Beyond Good and Evil 2 is that they probably require an actual release.

Duke Nukem Forever was released on June 14, 2011, and received mostly unfavorable reviews, with criticism for its graphics, dated humor and story, simplistic mechanics, and unpolished performance and design. It did not meet sales expectations but was deemed profitable by Take-Two Interactive, the owner of 2K Games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Good_and_Evil_2

Beyond Good and Evil 2 has been referred to as vaporware by industry figures such as Jason Schreier due to its lengthy development and lack of a release date.[3] In 2022, Beyond Good and Evil 2 broke the record held by Duke Nukem Forever (2011) for the longest development of a AAA video game, at more than 15 years. In 2023, the creative director, Emile Morel, died suddenly at age 40.

But there is a big difference to all those games: Star Citizen (and therefore Squadron 42) is backed and payed by customers already.

And in SC's case, in their hands.

I've been playing it with my wife for years, so it rankles me when people show up with the "will it ever release!?" takes. Go play it and see for yourself; they have free-fly events every quarter, so you don't even have to buy anything.

"Will Eve Online ever release? They haven't shown us any progress on Walk In Stations in years!" /s

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Has there even been video or screenshots of BG&E2 to prove it has even been in development at all? I thought it was simply a joke or a rumor since I haven't seen anything even being shown off.

So far I believe there have only been 3 or 4 pieces of media related to it. The 2008 car breakdown teaser, the gameplay teaser shortly after where she's running along the rooftops, then the 2018 trailer with the monkeys or whatever and like a gameplay overview or something around that time. There hasn't been anything of note since 2018 (i think) and I believe the creative director actually died this year.

It's basically the most cursed project in gaming at this point. Very disappointing too. BG&E was an absolute masterpiece.

Ubisoft has a promo video on their website. No gameplay, but I assume that they aren't gonna pay what it'd take to make that as a joke.

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/beyond-good-and-evil-2

https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/16/23557146/beyond-good-and-evil-2-not-canceled-development-hell

The good news is that work on the game is still under way. The bad news is that its actual release date is just as unclear as ever.

For those keeping track, that means it’s been almost fifteen years since Ubisoft released its first trailer for the game, which is longer than it took to get gaming’s other development-hell classic Duke Nukem Forever out the door.

The company made a big splash when it released a new trailer for the game at E3 2017, but at the time director Michel Ancel cautioned that the team was still at “day zero” of development. Following his departure from the company in 2020, reports emerged that Ancel was under investigation for his allegedly toxic management style.

It sounds a lot less like a joke and more like enormous project management problems.

The Guinness Reason is actually because Beyond Good & Evil 2 was teased in 2008 as a prequel to a game from 2003, while Star Citizen was known in 2012. Both haven’t released.

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