Star Citizen, the most crowd-funded project in history, has now reached $39 million in funding since its Kickstarter capped at $2 million in November 2012.
The PC space MMO has attracted a monumental following through its promise of unprecedented depth and scope. Developed by Cloud Imperium Games, Star Citizen seeks to combine classic sim gameplay with AAA-caliber visuals in a vast universe of unbridled potential.
The stretch goal reward for passing the $39 million mark is a new star system, referred to as UDS-2943-01-22. The trinary star is believed to house a jump point that intrepid pilots may venture through–for better or worse. The announcement whets our appetites: “Could planets exist in this carefully balanced web? What else might have been drawn there? One thing is certain: the first Citizen to travel to UDS-2943-01-22 will have one hell of a view!”
Along with the message above, Cloud Imperium unveiled a new reward at $40 million. Should that goal be reached, Star Citizen will incorporate a procedural generation system that would allow entire planets to be dynamically populated. It would also set the stage for more elaborate content deployment in the years to come.
“Star Citizen isn’t just about the game we launch with. We’re going into this building not only an immersive launch experience, but the platforms and the tools to let us keep expanding the game to meet the available technology,” studio founder Chris Roberts said. “The game won’t be a static experience: we want to build Star Citizen in a way that the experience will be fresh in five years, ten years and into the foreseeable future.”
Nearly 400,000 people have backed Star Citizen, which is due to release for PC sometime in 2015.
In related news, Cloud Imperium have announced a partnership with Kingdom Come: Deliverance developer Warhorse Studios with the purpose of sharing tech secrets. Both games use Crytek’s CryEngine, and would certainly benefit from an open collaboration. Kingdom Come: Deliverance recently closed its Kickstarter at approximately $1.5 million.
