The ‘Star Citizen’ Single Player Mode Has Been Split Into A Massive Trilogy With An Awesome Cast

As Chris Roberts’ incredible crowdfunded space-sim rockets went past the $78M funded barrier, the visionary creator has taken time out of development to provide an update on the currently in-development “Squadron 42” single-player campaign as well as the first-person-shooter module. The director touched on FPS weapon types, FPS Module inspiration, FPS non-player-character control and much more.

The update comes via Roberts’ latest “10 for the Chairman” episode, which is hosted on the official Star Citizen YouTube channel. The “10 for the Chairman” series sees Roberts answer 10 questions submitted by “Star Citizen” subscribers, providing valuable and in-depth info on the nuts and bolts of the game.

Roberts starts by telling viewers that the team is currently hard at work on the performance capture sessions for the game’s story-focused module, “Squadron 42.” As previously reported, Foundry 42, the development studio creating the single player portion of “Star Citizen,” recently hired former “God of War” director Todd Papy.

Roberts adds that the team has assembled an impressive cast for “Squadron 42,” which will make backers very happy, but he’s unwilling to share details right now, promising instead more information further down the line. He goes on to add that the “Squadron 42” story arc is so huge that the team has decided to split it up into a trilogy, referencing the manner in which “Wing Commander” was split.

“Squadron 42 Episode One” is scheduled for release this year, and Roberts says the release will include up to 70 missions. He added that these missions will be broken up differently than those found in “Wing Commander.” He went on to give the example of a mission that might see gamers to fly to a base, land, get into a firefight with pirates, take off and then engage in ship-to-ship combat.

Roberts said that all 70 missions in “Episode One” would constitute about 20 hours of gameplay, and he went on to tease “Squadron 42 Episode Two: Behind Enemy Lines” and “Episode 3,” which will launch in 2016 and 2017, respectively. He stated that each would be the equivalent of a new “Call of Duty” campaign.

Before moving to address questions about FPS Module weapons and armour, Roberts said he believes anyone who happens to be a “Wing Commander” fan will likely be very happy with “Squadron 42.” He closed by saying future episodes could abandon the military focus of “Squadron 42” and venture into rogue-like Han Solo-esque territory.

As noted by RockPaperShotgun, Roberts recently promised that the currently disparate modules that make up “Star Citizen” would soon start coming together. Spring 2015 will see the release of beta versions of the FPS module and the Planetside/Social Modules, while Arena Commander 2.0 arrives in the Summer with MultiCrew ships. In the Fall, the “Squadron 42” FPS module will see release, ahead of a planned end of year launch for the Persistent Universe Alpha for backers. The commercial launch of “Star Citizen” will occur sometime in 2016.

(Credit: YouTube/StarCitizen)

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