While it has been no secret that Cloud Imperium Games’ Star Citizen has been turning out to be one of the most expensive titles being developed, funding for the title is on track to hit an entirely new milestone. At the time of writing, it’s reached $885,435,950 in funding, and the rate at which the funding has been going, the title is expected to cross the $900 million, and eventually even the $1 billion mark.
Star Citizen was originally announced all the way back in 2012. Since then, developer Cloud Imperium Games has largely relied on crowdsourcing to fund the ambitious title. While it has been in development for over a decade, 2016 also saw the release of the first playable version. Since then, the space-based title has been getting regular updates, including a major one at the start of this year, which brought it up to Alpha 4.0.
The update brought with it a major new feature that allows the studio to run different parts of the games across different servers while still keeping these “server boundaries” essentially invisible to players. Through this update, issues that would affect the stability of any server would be localised only to that server, with the rest of the game being unaffected.
“Each planet, landing zone, or major station is now covered by different game servers,” wrote Cloud Imperium Games boss Chris Roberts when announcing the feature. “Thanks to this technology, server boundaries are effectively invisible, even at our high levels of fidelity, ensuring smooth, uninterrupted gameplay. This means that server performance, playability, and overall health are now local to each of the nodes in the server mesh.”
In the meantime, the studio has also noted that its primary focus of development for Star Citizen in 2025 has been “improving playability” while improving performance and stability. Of course, it’s also keen on content.
“As we jump into the new year, our primary focus across our Star Citizen teams is clear: improving playability,” wrote Roberts earlier this year. “Our drive for playability surrounds three critical areas – performance, stability, and content. We understand that the Live environment must be far more reliable and consistent, and we are determined to deliver on this.”
When it comes to funding, Star Citizen had crossed the $750 million mark back in December 2024. It is also worth noting that just about every stretch goal that the company had announced since the title was first announced has been reached, with the highest one coming in at $65 million, which would offer the studio the funds it needs to work on “enhanced ship modularity”.
Back in August, Roberts had also spoken about the potential release windows for Star Citizen, as well as its spin-off Squadron 42, with the latter aiming for a 2026 release. Star Citizen, however, would need even more time in development, with Cloud Imperium Games aiming to launch it in either 2027 or 2028.
