Star Citizen still in Alpha, $600 million later

Star Citizen has gotten slightly closer to a full release, reaching its Alpha 3.20 stage years after it entered development.

The space-faring RPG has been in active development for a long, long, long time, yet despite missing several launch dates, it's still as popular as ever with its fans, who’ve spent their hard-earned cash backing the project.

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If you don’t know what Star Citizen is, think of it like Bethesda’s latest IP, Starfield, but way bigger and with more to do.

Stand-out features include a ridiculously big explorable galaxy, which you can explore in your own starship, complete missions, trade cargo, and a number of other space simulation activities.

The latest update, Fully Loaded, adds PvP modes to the game, as well as new missions, ships, races and other content, like the MISC Hull C ship, described as a “titan of the cargo hauling profession with room for a crew of up to four players.” Sounds like fun if you’ve got friends to play with, though it’ll set you back $500 for the ship alone.

Pricing has been a controversial topic with the game, with many believing the whole thing is actually an elaborate scam designed to squeeze as much money as possible out of consumers, despite there being no intention of the game officially releasing.

That hasn’t stopped dedicated backers from spending portions of their paychecks on the game’s development though, as a steady income has been raked in for the title since 2012, when kickstarting began.

At the time of writing, Star Citizen has amassed a whopping $600 million with over 4 million backers, yet it doesn’t seem like it’s any closer to being released.

It doesn’t seem like that’s going to change anytime soon either, given how staggered the updates are and how it’s still in its Alpha phase.