AAA RPG is Mass Effect Meets Starfield, 2026 Game Confirms 40-Hour Length

One of the most drawn-out development stories in the history of video games may finally be coming to a close, as the studio’s founder and CEO has announced that the game will be playable in 2026 (14 years after it was announced).

Work on Star Citizen began back in 2012, following the formation of Cloud Imperium Games.

If you’ve not heard the story of its ridiculously successful Kickstarter campaign before, I’m not going to bore you with all the details now (especially considering others have covered the story dozens of times before me), but the gist of it is that the initial crowdfunding campaign ended at roughly $2.1 million dollars.

That figure is a drop in the ocean compared to the one billion dollars in support that Cloud Imperium has supposedly received from further backers since then, which is why it’s great news that in 2026, Star Citizen is finally… still not coming out, as it’s targeting a 2027/2028 release.

Its single-player spin-off, Squadron 42, will, however, according to a recent blog post from CEO/Founder Chris Roberts.

Promo image of Ben Mendelsohn in Squadron 42, Cloud Imperium Games

“On the Squadron 42 front, our focus throughout 2025 was to build on the progress of 2024 and what we showed at last year’s CitizenCon by bringing the game to content complete and closing out remaining core tasks in preparation for Beta”, Roberts revealed in a post on the official Cloud Imperium website.

“All chapters are now fully playable from beginning to end, and we’ve been playing through the game ourselves regularly. Squadron 42 is a large game, over forty hours in length, and it’s becoming increasingly clear how special it will be once the remaining polish, optimization, and bug fixing is complete.”

Squadron 42 is a fully single-player focused RPG, akin to the likes of Mass Effect and Starfield, and will feature an absolutely stacked voice cast.

The game will feature the likes of Gary Oldman, Ben Mendelsohn, Andy Serkis, Mark Hamill, Gillian Anderson, Mark Strong, and John Rhys-Davies. Man, no wonder they needed all that funding with a cast like this.

This all sounds great, and I genuinely hope that Cloud Imperium Games meets its 2026 target, so that I can finally stop writing about this game at some point in the near future.

It is important to note that this isn’t the first time they’ve been certain of a release date, though, so I wouldn’t get your hopes up too much… just in case.