System Requirements for Cloud Imperium Games' Squadron 42 Outed

[Raevenlord]

Squadron 42 is the single-player, story-driven portion of the world's most successful Kickstarter project, Star Citizen. The game, which originally made use of Crytek's CryEngine, has made the move to Amazon's CryEngine-based Lumberyard engine, which should deliver impressive visuals as well. Squadron 42 is being sold in a standalone version costing $45, and for that price, Cloud Imperium games is promising an epic sci-fi story, populated by more than 10 hours of performance capture of top-tier actors like Mark Hamill, Gary Oldman, and Gillian Anderson, just to name a few (Andy Serkis also makes an appearance, he who is one of the most talented performance-capture actors of our times.)

With all those features, you'd be forgiven for asking "But will it run Squadron 42'" out of your current or future hardware - especially considering the history of CryEngine-based games. however, the system requirements are at the same time vague and, for the most part, unimpressive. They call for Windows 7 through 10 (DX11 title), a DX11-capable graphics card with minimum 2GB VRAM, and 4GB strongly recommended, a quad-core CPU, and the outlier of this sample, 16GB+ of system RAM. An SSD is also strongly recommended for the experience, which isn't all that surprising considering Lumberyard's roots.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[RejZoR]

...of the world's most controversial Kickstarter project...

There you go, fixed it for you. Most successful kickstarter projects are those that gather money and create a magnificent game. This thing has been in development forever, poured millions of dollars into it, had tons of refunds, lawsuits etc. This is by no definition a successful kickstarter project. Except if we consider money milking capacity. Then it is.

 

[bug]

...of the world's most controversial Kickstarter project...

There you go, fixed it for you. Most successful kickstarter projects are those that gather money and create a magnificent game. This thing has been in development forever, poured millions of dollars into it, had tons of refunds, lawsuits etc. This is by no definition a successful kickstarter project. Except if we consider money milking capacity. Then it is.

A matter of perspective. This really is the most successful kickstarter game if you happen to be on the receiving side of the cash

 

[Vayra86]

...of the world's most controversial Kickstarter project...

There you go, fixed it for you. Most successful kickstarter projects are those that gather money and create a magnificent game. This thing has been in development forever, poured millions of dollars into it, had tons of refunds, lawsuits etc. This is by no definition a successful kickstarter project. Except if we consider money milking capacity. Then it is.

Nah man. Perspective, I agree with @bug on this.

To me this kickstarter *still* represents:
- The largest scope of any crowdfunded game ever
- The largest scope of any game ever?
- An already functional base that not only involves a space sim, but also an FPS, world building and a persistent environment
- The promise of projects that are truly going to evolve gaming as a whole

Honestly, even with all the salt surrounding Star Citizen, which mostly stems from people overreacting and overspending (time, money, effort) on it, I still have faith in this project and it is actually making strides. Development is happening and it is visible. This alone is enough to counter the idea that its 'already failing'.

All CIG needs is one solid Alpha release that showcases the gameplay in a good way and allows people to experience it. SQ42 can and probably will be that release.

 

[Gasaraki]

...of the world's most controversial Kickstarter project...

There you go, fixed it for you. Most successful kickstarter projects are those that gather money and create a magnificent game. This thing has been in development forever, poured millions of dollars into it, had tons of refunds, lawsuits etc. This is by no definition a successful kickstarter project. Except if we consider money milking capacity. Then it is.

Every single forum there are people like you that regurgitate the same "this is a scam", "most controversial project", "never going to come out", "blah, blah blah". They don't follow the game, never played it, don't watch the weekly updates, etc. They have made so much progress and the game already looks amazing, the things you can do it unbelievable and very cool. Can't wait for the single player to come out and the multiplayer open world to hit beta.

 

[the54thvoid]

When I pitched in my lowly $75 for a ship 2-3 years ago(?) I thought I'd be playing the completed game by now. I didn't know S42 was a separate financial entity.

 

[Kursah]

Yep S42 was split I think a year or two ago.

Looking forward to seeing what Alpha 3.0 and SQ42 have to offer in 2018. I've been too busy in 2017 for it to matter too much, I suppose we'll find out soon enough what happens but my hopes aren't shot for this game yet.

It would be nice to see a little more frequency of releases this year, but not at the expense of further stability or quality issues. What is already there is impressive but I want to see more!

 

[Vya Domus]

- The promise of projects that are truly going to evolve gaming as a whole

Key word : promise.

 

[64K]

I really hope that Squadron 42 turns out well. That's what I'm looking forward to. I have no interest right now in the multiplayer aspect of Star Citizen as it seems that it will be loaded up with players that bought ships that cost hundreds and even thousands of dollars and they will probably be blasting entry level ships all to hell and back. I know that you can buy insurance and better ships with in-game currency but I assume you will have to manage to stay alive long enough to earn that currency to begin with.

This game is a good example of "Feature Creep" imo. Chris Roberts has lost his way over the years and he doesn't seem to realize that his focus should be on finishing the game and add to it later. The latest is that he's selling plots of land. He has some of his development team working on this superfluous addition instead of working on finishing the game. Just finish the damn game Chris and then build on that with patches or DLC later on.

 

[bug]

I really hope that Squadron 42 turns out well. That's what I'm looking forward to. I have no interest right now in the multiplayer aspect of Star Citizen as it seems that it will be loaded up with players that bought ships that cost hundreds and even thousands of dollars and they will probably be blasting entry level ships all to hell and back. I know that you can buy insurance and better ships with in-game currency but I assume you will have to manage to stay alive long enough to earn that currency to begin with.

This game is a good example of "Feature Creep" imo. Chris Roberts has lost his way over the years and he doesn't seem to realize that his focus should be on finishing the game and add to it later. The latest is that he's selling plots of land. He has some of his development team working on this superfluous addition instead of working on finishing the game. Just finish the damn game Chris and then build on that with patches or DLC later on.

Yes, at this point I actually wonder how SC will not end up pay-to-win with virtually all of the better assets already in the hands of people with disposable cash.
I'd buy into Squadron 42, but it has to be something like Privateer, not some overly complicated story with action only taking you from one cinematic cutscene to the next. Unfortunately as sketchy as SC is at this point, we know even less about S42.

 

[yotano211]

...of the world's most controversial Kickstarter project...

There you go, fixed it for you. Most successful kickstarter projects are those that gather money and create a magnificent game. This thing has been in development forever, poured millions of dollars into it, had tons of refunds, lawsuits etc. This is by no definition a successful kickstarter project. Except if we consider money milking capacity. Then it is.

And how much money did grand theft auto 5 was made for. A game takes years and years of development time and lots of money to make, esp. a game of this level.
I havent paid anything into this game and I wont until I see the final product. When the game gets completed is when I buy it.
Those refunds where from inpatient people who think games can be made in 3 years. Lawsuits happen to any corporation. I own my own small business and I was sued last year. The lawsuit was dismissed but I still was out lawyer and court fees.

 

[RejZoR]

Lol. Optimists. Yeah, games do take time and money to make. But they make them at one point. And they make millions out of it. Example with GTA5. But they had a clear vision what they want and they made it. This here is like giving millions to an eager garage duo with massive ideas but no practical means of doing it. Just the fact they are all over the place with the game design tells me they not even virtually have a clear vision what they even want. Every game starts with a functional core. In which case they need to decide whether they want to start it with space ships or FPS elements. When that's out of the way, you develop that to a state of calling it "a game". You know, space ship combat at least or deathmatch capable maps. Then, when you have both functional, the FPS and space ships parts, you start merging them into FPS space ship combat game. What they are doing is building ships and selling them for 5 digits of real money, but you can't really use them anywhere, then they make some FPS stuff that's hardly usable as well and then they make some ship stuff that's not really usable either and then they decide to make some planets and neither is even remotely in a state of being playable on ANY level. This should begin as a FPS game since it's the most accessible type of game for masses. Then they should expand it to space ships. Because that's more of a niche thing, but it would possibly suck in FPS gamers. Then you go into planetary exploration and stuff. They could gradually evolve the game as players could already enjoy the actual game and "evolve" with it. That's how you DO make games. But whatevers, I'm just a whiner on forums, right?

I was greatly impressed by that initial demo of a soldier standing in a collapsing corridor of a ship being under attack. The particles, screen effects, the way sound interacted with the happenings, it felt amazing. And then I saw all the mess they made afterwards which is a total disappointment.

 

[64K]

Chris Roberts started off with a vision of making the best PC game that he could and with a 20 million dollar budget as his optimal goal to get there and an estimated release date of 2014 and now he has raked in what? 170 million dollars and he's selling plots of land to get more money to further expand the scope of this game? He's a very talented man and he's creative but this project needs better management than he is capable of. By that I mean he needs someone to tell him to stop expanding the scope of this game and finish it. It started in 2012 and here it is almost 2018 and he's selling plots of land to gain more money? Someone who will listen to him needs to tell him that you can't make a perfect game by adding to it forever if you can't finish the game at some point along the way.

Will we see more items for sale on this game? Maybe houses for the plots of land that you can buy and futuristic cars to park in the garages?

It's past time to stop it with the expansion of scope with this game and just finish it imo

 

[Kohl Baas]

Lol. Optimists. Yeah, games do take time and money to make. But they make them at one point. And they make millions out of it. Example with GTA5. But they had a clear vision what they want and they made it. This here is like giving millions to an eager garage duo with massive ideas but no practical means of doing it. Just the fact they are all over the place with the game design tells me they not even virtually have a clear vision what they even want. Every game starts with a functional core. In which case they need to decide whether they want to start it with space ships or FPS elements. When that's out of the way, you develop that to a state of calling it "a game". You know, space ship combat at least or deathmatch capable maps. Then, when you have both functional, the FPS and space ships parts, you start merging them into FPS space ship combat game. What they are doing is building ships and selling them for 5 digits of real money, but you can't really use them anywhere, then they make some FPS stuff that's hardly usable as well and then they make some ship stuff that's not really usable either and then they decide to make some planets and neither is even remotely in a state of being playable on ANY level. This should begin as a FPS game since it's the most accessible type of game for masses. Then they should expand it to space ships. Because that's more of a niche thing, but it would possibly suck in FPS gamers. Then you go into planetary exploration and stuff. They could gradually evolve the game as players could already enjoy the actual game and "evolve" with it. That's how you DO make games. But whatevers, I'm just a whiner on forums, right?

I was greatly impressed by that initial demo of a soldier standing in a collapsing corridor of a ship being under attack. The particles, screen effects, the way sound interacted with the happenings, it felt amazing. And then I saw all the mess they made afterwards which is a total disappointment.

They not just had a clear vision, they had a completely built up studio with a developement team with years of experience together adn of course they had all the money they needed right from the start. BTW they haven't done any extraordinary except the in-game character-switching. Everythig els was already in GTA4 or other already constructed games.

CIG startet the campaign with adout a dozen people and now they ase over 400 in 4 or 5 studios around the world. Tuey hadn't just developing a game, they had to built the whole studio/company without ever knowing how kuch money they wipp have at the end. They had and still have to create build to represent to the crown and keep the founder informed which also something Rockstar hasn't had to do.

GTA5 took about 5-6years to develope and they gave the very firts tease/official info of the developementsl's existence about 2 years before release. That meant they had at least 3 years of development in their fully equipped studio with their already ongoing development team with no disturbance at all.

Good luck to count that in if you can.

As others said: all crying and bashing is based on ignorance and impatience.

 

[RejZoR]

The Witcher 3, $82 millions of total development and marketing costs (with included inflation for 2017). It's probably considered as one of the most beautiful, enchanting and open games. And it has been released. And an expansion for it too. Because they had a clear vision what and how to do it.

 

[Vayra86]

The Witcher 3, $82 millions of total development and marketing costs (with included inflation for 2017). It's probably considered as one of the most beautiful, enchanting and open games. And it has been released. And an expansion for it too. Because they had a clear vision what and how to do it.

LOOOOOL no man. Just no. The Witcher's development is already an iterative one where part 3 is the culmination of years upon years of missteps and badly executed ideas. And even the development of 3 was total chaos. Should watch/listen to some dev interviews on that. You really don't have a clue, apparently.

GTA 5 is another such weird example; you are comparing Rockstar, an established studio with an established franchise, to something done from scratch. So imagine the devs of GTA V had the idea of creating that game, but they ended up showing us Alpha gameplay of GTA 1 instead. How would we respond to that?

 

[RejZoR]

And yet they pulled it off and created one of the most iconic games of all times. If you think ANY development is a smooth sailing from start to end, you haven't seen any. But the clusterfuck Star Citizen is having, c'mon, be real. And lets don't forget The Witcher 1. It has it's own style and maybe a bit weird combat system if you're used to mash and bash buttons to attack from TES and issues and whatever, but it's still a magnificent game. Mind you, I didn't give GTA5 as an example first...

 

[TheMailMan78]

When I pitched in my lowly $75 for a ship 2-3 years ago(?) I thought I'd be playing the completed game by now. I didn't know S42 was a separate financial entity.

Dude I vested about 3 years ago also. Check your package. It includes S42 upon release. You shouldn't have to pay anymore. Also join Erocker, Reayth and I crew. We are starting a pirate ship that hunts and kills furries!

 

[bug]

And how much money did grand theft auto 5 was made for. A game takes years and years of development time and lots of money to make, esp. a game of this level.

I don't think the complaints are about this game's development taking time (or money). It's more about not having anything resembling a roadmap and instead being a series "wouldn't it be cool if we had X? yes, it would! then let's do X next" kind of decisions. Which basically means we don't really know where the game currently stands. Which in turn for most people is not a reason for optimism.

 

[Kohl Baas]

And yet they pulled it off and created one of the most iconic games of all times. If you think ANY development is a smooth sailing from start to end, you haven't seen any. But the clusterfuck Star Citizen is having, c'mon, be real. And lets don't forget The Witcher 1. It has it's own style and maybe a bit weird combat system if you're used to mash and bash buttons to attack from TES and issues and whatever, but it's still a magnificent game. Mind you, I didn't give GTA5 as an example first...

By "unique combat style" you mean trying to switch from isometric battle-system to TPS in the middle of development I guess.

The thing is, you simply can not compare anything to SC because nothing like this has done before. You simply can not point another game started from a dozen people garage project of "please give us 500k" to growth itself out to a 400+ people developer studio with a 160+Million AAA game. No precedent yet.

It's true if they'd gave as what they'd initially aimed we've already had our mediocre space shooter since 2014. But we were the guilty ones hitting stretch goals one after the other and keep paying ever since when a new ship/feature is introduced so if there's anyone to blame by the impatient ones is the community itself.

However I still strongly believe that even if the whole project fails if all and every cent of money will be lost, though it would have a huge and devastating blow to the community and crowdfunding as a whole it would still be much better to have someone to try the impossible than a dozen or a hundred serial produced CallOfDuty/Battlefield/Fifa2157.

We need to keep our trust and carry on because there is no other way to get something this marvelous come to life. And it's coming. A lot slower than expected and with a lot more controversy by the impatient ones, but still. It's enough to watch what we had year after year at our hands as backers and if someone can't see the progression in that, there's nothing to do with it. Some just want to see the world burn and some just don't want to see at all.

You can not argue with believers, you can only convert them. - a blade that cuts both ways.

 

[bug]

The thing is, you simply can not compare anything to SC because nothing like this has done before.

This I think is the crux of the problem. Some people swallow that line hook, line and sinker, while others think this just another project and comparing to any other projects, it doesn't seem to be managed in a predictable way at all.

I mean, seriously, what exactly are the expectations right now? Because all I see is a title that will let you grid for a myriad of things or simply pay for that with real cash. Just like any crappy mobile game, but with way, way more options for grinding/grabbing your cash.

 

[Vayra86]

I dunno man, I think the majority of people with the opinion of mismanagement are mostly just impatient.

When I backed this project, I seriously considered its scope and I also considered that its very unlikely they would ever meet the timeframe they set at the time. Even back then, this game's promise was in a broad sense exactly the same as it is today. SQ42 single player + persistent universe + several modules that would be tackled by different teams and in a staggered approach, each one feeding on the work that was done on the underlying systems of the rest. That is no different today and even back then it clearly explained that the beginnings would show very little, but very fundamental stuff being created. Alongside all of that, there was the promise right from the get-go to start world building, which includes ships, lore, and everything else. That is also what we see every day.

Honestly even with all the 'storms' raging around SC the bottom line they explained back then still exists, and the game and its features are still growing. Is it delayed, yes... this is very normal in any software production environment, and especially so when things are built from scratch. It is simply impossible to predict all the issues that pop up; and also, you cannot expect teams to be on crunch time 24/7, 365 for several years on end. The delays are really the norm, not the exception.

On top of that, this project is clearly managed using the best practices in IT and application management; we see Agile way of working, with smaller teams that focus on specific problems, we see iterative approaches to problems, we see a fast release schedule and regular updates. This is the new norm and widely considered a best practice; CIG then adds on the novelty of also being responsive and alive in a PR-sense; their PR is essentially part of the projects' scope as well. This intricate web of feature updates and messages to the outer world really only shows a very lively development cycle and superb management. Anyone who has knowledge of the business will agree and recognize that.

Considering all this I am not at all surprised things sometimes go wrong or an initial planning needs to be adjusted; and in all fairness, CIG and the work they do still demands respect. Even if I also don't always agree with everything they do.

 

[bug]

I dunno man, I think the majority of the people with the opinion of mismanagement are mostly just impatient.

As a software developer, I'll remember to tell my clients that, next time they start bugging me about release dates, project progress and whatnot

Seriously, this is not the Second Coming, it's just a software project. Milestones, scope, Gantt charts and stuff still applies.
Edit: Most importantly, the Iron Triangle rule still applies.

 

[Vayra86]

As a software developer, I'll remember to tell my clients that, next time they start bugging me about release dates, project progress and whatnot

Seriously, this is not the Second Coming, it's just a software project. Milestones, scope, Gantt charts and stuff still applies.

Clearly this is not 'just' a software project. I seriously doubt anything you work on has a risk factor as high as SC.

 

[bug]

Clearly this is not 'just' a software project. I seriously doubt anything you work on has a risk factor as high as SC.

Let's agree to disagree, ok?