Star Citizen has raised $1 billion, remains in early access after nine years

Cloud Imperium Games

Amid suggestions that Rockstar Games is spending as much as around $1.5 billion on the development of Grand Theft Auto VI — which would mean it's the most expensive video game ever made — there's at least one other game confirmed to have reached 10 figures in funding. Star Citizen has now raked in over $1 billion in funding from more than 6.5 million people.

Star Citizen first emerged in 2012 with a Kickstarter campaign that had a relatively modest target of $500,000. Developer Cloud Imperium Games smashed that goal as backers ponied up over $2.1 million (a separate campaign at the time pulled in $4.1 million). The project went on to snag a crowdfunding world record in 2014 after topping $55 million in funding.

By the time Star Citizen was released in early access in 2017, the studio had raised over $170 million. Nearly nine years later, the space combat sim remains in an alpha state. 

"It's not something that would be able to be done under a traditional big game publisher funding it, or private equity. They usually wouldn't have the time and the patience, but with what we're doing, people just want to see the biggest, best world possible, and they love the idea of the dream. And as we're going along and they see more of it, it reinforces itself, basically," game director and Cloud Imperium CEO Chris Roberts told Variety. "I fully believe that we've still got a long time, even after we've got what we call 1.0 out, and we're not considering an alpha anymore, that we'll be adding and building on the universe and the world, and it will be a place for people to adventure together and meet up together and have fun together."

After several delays, the single-player spin-off Squadron 42 is still scheduled to arrive this year, according to the game's website. Cloud Imperium has not yet announced a firm release date for that game either. Still, Roberts is looking forward to players getting their hands on it, and implied that may not actually be too far away.

"My pitch is, basically, you're the star of this huge blockbuster event movie, and it seamlessly goes between the storytelling and the cinematic moments to you being in control and first person and pass it, moving through the story, and has a level of detail and scale and scope that you don't normally see in a game," Roberts said. "It feels pretty epic. I'm actually very excited for when people— because we're right at the end now, we're in the closing stages and it's coming together really well."