After 13 years and a stunning $800 million in backers' funds, Star Citizen, the most ambitious space sim of all time, continues to languish in early access.
The brainchild of Chris Roberts — best known as the creator of the seminal Wing Commander series — Star Citizen was created to expand on ideas that didn't find their way into Freelancer, another project Roberts was working on before the developer was acquired by Microsoft, and he departed. Released in 2003, Freelancer focused on an open space sandbox that allowed players to carve out a living trading, mining, or hunting bounties across 48 star systems. While it was released as a single-player game, Roberts originally planned to follow it up with a more ambitious online version.
