Fourteen years after its initial announcement, Squadron 42 is finally on Steam and available for wishlisting. While the game still doesn’t have a specific release date, it aims to launch sometime within the second quarter of 2027 after getting delayed (again).
Squadron 42, Star Citizen‘s more focused and more apparent little brother, seems to be reaching the end of its development after 14 very long years in production. The game now has an official Steam page, which you can visit to wishlist the game in anticipation of its Q2 2027 release date. While the game was supposed to release this year, it was delayed once again into the next, though if the Steam page is anything to go by, Cloud Imperium might actually stick to this latest plan after all.
Read what’s behind the latest news in gaming (with a bit of snark) by subscribing to the Destructoid Checkpoint newsletter!
However, since Squadron 42 was meant to come out in 2014, i.e., 12 years ago, delays can always happen. Both it and Star Citizen have been in somewhat of a production stasis where they are constantly and simultaneously around the corner and years away, despite hundreds of millions of dollars poured into the projects via crowdfunding. In fact, Star Citizen has received over a billion in funding since it first began its journey through (but not to) the stars, and yet it still remains the most elusive game out there.
We’ve written time and again about how many players out there consider these games to be a borderline scam, considering the amount of money poured in and what has been delivered. But to play devil’s advocate here, Star Citizen really has delivered a lot so far, and the innovations it’s trying to achieve are nothing short of fascinating, and if it ever does come out in full, it’ll be the most advanced online game to date.
But that’s the crux of the issue with CIE and its project: the dream is as much the product as the game itself. The idea of achieving, of getting to that point, the infinite journey toward the center of the universe.
Thankfully, Squadron 42 has always been a more focused project and much smaller in scope, though it does have all the makings of a AAA behemoth. A-list actors, top-notch graphics and mechanics, the whole shebang. So, perhaps Q2 will start us toward seeing Star Citizen completed, too. Who knows.
