FILMMAKER REACTS: SQUADRON 42 | THIS CAN'T BE A GAME!!

[@PepicWalrus]

44:25 fun fact CIG did not come to Henry Cavil but Henry Cavil actually came to CIG and requested to be in Squadron 42.

[@vorpalrobot]

Right after man of steel too iirc

[@Arthillis]

Actually from what i heard it was Henry's mom that learned about this project and told him about it and then he looked into it and wanted in on it. Not sure if that is true though.

[@stoapfalzrunden4150]

@@Arthillis After all we know about Henry so far it sounds true. :D

[@danmcdonald3723]

What this means, of course, is that some of us may have actually bumped into Henry Cavill while he was playing Star Citizen and we never even knew it!

[@Howl-Runner]

​@@danmcdonald3723So

[@RoughGalaxyYT]

Fun fact. The Vanduul (the bad guys) ard all mocapped by Andy Serkis. Also, important note, probably said but worth repeating. This isn't a tech demo. This is the intro/tutorial stage of the game.

[@Ronusti]

Too bad the game is not much more than a tech demo, eh?

[@heliumphoenix]

@@Ronusti - Star Citizen is extremely playable....It is NOT "not much more than a tech demo". Squadron 42 is the single-player INTRO (a full single-player campaign) that you can play BEFORE going into the live multiplayer world. It IS still in alpha, but given the scale of both the game, environment, and realism.....they've made incredible progress.

[@lucidnonsense942]

@@heliumphoenix SC is playable as long as you don't mind things like constant server crashes, mission objectives being bugged 50% of the time, the monorail transit launching you into space, elevator floors disappearing and you falling into the void etc etc etc etc... I play the damn game, let's not glaze CIG - it's at barely an Alpha stage that's held together with shoestrings and rabid hamsters. Ships are nice and it flies well... until it doesn't, which occurs every half hour or so.

[@steellegacy555]

All in engine :) this game is going to be glorious!❤

[@Bouwplan]

@@lucidnonsense942 Sounds like you haven't played in a while. Yeah, its alpha stage, and yeah bugs are all over the place, but it sounds like you haven't checked in since 3.18. ;D

[@N1GHT_ST0RM]

Yes. That Face Changing was a Glitch. This is NOT Prerendered. This whole thing was LIVE. They originally showed it Live on Stream at CititzenCon This year. It crashed two times live on stage there. The Guy playing it was so pissed that he drove to the offices after the Con and Recorded this. Without crashes.

[@dy031101]

It seems like the one recorded and the one being played live were of different versions, too. There were subtle differences between the two- for example, the first escape pod scene. In the recorded version it simply disappeared from view whereas in the live demo it ended up rammed by a Vanduul.

[@Nessy385]

@@dy031101 i think they just skipped it accidentally on the live version, as there was a crash right before it

[@adamchambers1393]

​@dy031101 it didn't disappear it also exploded, just Rich turned away. You can still see the aftermath of the ship explosion though and the lighting and sound from it.

[@ROFLWAFFLELAWL4]

@@dy031101 Because he didnt look at it long enough thats all lol

[@PepicWalrus]

He just looks away in this verison but you can still hear the explosion and see the flash ​@@dy031101

[@RosscoAW]

As somebody with domain expertise (in the gaming industry) that's followed CIG's development of Squadron 42 and it's underlying engine for many years, it is incredibly relieving how somebody with a cinematographic background picks up on the existence of very small features (the cinematic lighting they drop on character faces, the very specific and wide variety of cinematic camera movements working perfectly in dynamic cutscenes, etc) some of which took years to dial in, and seeing how excellently all of CIG's investments in tech and features for this have paid off -- and I'm only 15 minutes into your own video.

[@kaizammit]

I hope you enjoy the rest 💪🏻✌🏻

[@BrotherAzrael]

Love that you're really paying attention to details and suddenly stop talking when you hear dialogue so that you don't miss anything, great review of this video!

[@kaizammit]

Thank you for watching

[@tobytoxd]

Well said, loved that, too!

[@SteveZapper]

I think he missed the part were he made the enemy think the shields were lower then put them up at the last minute to Deflect the Huge Weapon Hitting them!

[@Dr.Kryptanical]

Yeah btw mate the reason he spent most of the time with his ass on the floor is cause at the beginning he chose the hardest difficulty setting!

[@vocnisicle]

@@SteveZapper That was Chiefs kiss. 🤌

[@JadeFoxy]

This is the most genuine reaction i've ever seen, coupled with your attention for the cinematic elements made this really nice to watch

[@kaizammit]

Thank you so much for watching, glad you liked it!

[@Renn_Silvarian]

Ngl, I kinda want you to react to all the Star Citizens Ship advertisements/commercials after watching this. They have Ads for the in-game ships that you can purchase and fly around in.

[@lurakin88]

I second this! A lot of the ads are very good, but there's also a few where I think they missed the mark and would be nice to hear his thoughts on it all

[@kaizammit]

There's real ads in the game that actually sell you stuff? This game sounds like fiction.

[@Renn_Silvarian]

@@kaizammit they make commercials for the ships like it's a car commercials. The ship brand that tempts me to make a purchase comes mainly from Anvil Aerospace.

[@sithmaster]

@@kaizammit Well. Back in the days you were able to get the Online World (Star Citizen) and Squadron 42 for around $50. They are selling all these virtual ships to finance the production of both games. Some say its a scam, but I can assure its a more safe business model than having monthly subscriptions or gacha game things. I have problem collecting virtual ships. Most of them I was able to fly already and had my fun time. And most of them did not cost me more than a typical evening at a local cinema with food and travel.

[@stachemo4740]

@@kaizammitthere’s a lot of trailers for ships and updates!

[@natsirt9809]

Seeing a complete outsider to star citizen reacting to the visuals is always a treat. This is all simulated real time in star engine.

[@Renb3771]

Don’t forget, no loadingscreens. I would really advise to watch the trailer of the star engine. In the multiplayer part, there are now (almost it’s in active test) two star systems with multiple real life size planets and moons, dotted with city’s and ginormous spacestations fully explorable. All while having not a single loadingscreen. And it’s not like no man’s sky where the planets are their own instance and you have a hidden loading screen. It’s all one big space. Sounds unbelievable, wich is why I advise to watch the engine trailer.

[@smokedog7730]

I said the same thing when i was introduced to the idea / vision that was SC. Yes it was over 10 years ago now, but the game and the idea of it filled me with a sense of everything I wanted in a game! My mates and I came out of CitCon 2015 like little girls that had just met their teeny-bopper heartthrobs.

[@thedeadliest4380]

@@Renb3771 Fully explorable is a bit of a stretch.

[@Renb3771]

@ how is it a Strech? On the smallest Moon Right now is enough room to fit multiple of the biggest game Maps all at the Same time. And I can visit every Square Inch of it if I feel Like it. Its Not going to be the Most awsome Adventure, but its probably Not more boring then exploring in starfield… at least I can move/fly Freely and have no loadingscreens…

[@Mia-rk9en]

​@@Renb3771Fully explorable... The reality is i seldom seen a game with such little things to do. With such empty nature. With so little missions. With such bad AI for enemys in fps combat. I love good sci-fi and the ships and the the fling from one planet to another is very cool but thats about it. As soon as people land on a planet it's empty and boring as hell. Most game devolepers are better. It's amazing how bad and empty this game is. They waste all there time and energy to make cool looking ships. But except from that there is pretty much nothing in this game. Impressive. But i admit the guy on top is a genius to get so much cash from people to deliver pretty much nothing. If you are no expert and only follow the devolepment casually from time to time then it is damn impressive that the game didn't make any progress in the past 4 years. The only thing which was noticeable is that they released some new ships for ridiculous amounts of money.

[@francoispiche5225]

Never seen a better react than this one. I love your genuine amazement, and your criticism was spot on. Some of the stuff was'nt up to standard compared to the rest of the experience and you called it out exactly like you were seeing it. I'm a proud back from the day the project was announced 12 years ago and your react moment was one my top 3 community moments. Kudos for keeping my drawn to your comments for the whole video even tough I've seen the trailer 4 times already.

[@tommeegunn9318]

His comment " Fuck! I forgot it was a game" said volumes towards the quality of the prologue

[@renegadeceo]

Same here, backed 12 years and 12 days ago now and its nice seeing such a genuine engagement from a cold take by someone who wasnt enbittered by the likes of SCRefunds or 8 years of playing SC on the PU (3.18 was ROUGH... nearly 2.0 rough)

[@k2000pvc]

@@renegadeceo Nice to meet you RenegadeCEO. CIG has such a huge pile of talented employees (My favorite is Mark Abent the bugsmasher) who ensures that the project meets expectations. Personally I just ignore people who have no faith in the game and focus on positive cristicism from youtubers, CIG's content and awesome content that the community constantly share with us.

[@Unknown-ek1ox]

@@renegadeceo tbf (I backed in 2015) I can see why some people turn a bit bitter... but on the other hand the tech progress since I backed and played initially is remarkable, despite there always being bugs and issues in the P(T)U so far. When I joined the whole planet tech people take for granted now wasn't even a thing or considered feasible. Then it was made possible a few mere years later in like 2018 I think. Huge jump forward. I mean you surely know it as an actual early backer but I'm just repeating it here for others reading this. The scope of the game grew and with that game delays and issues, however, the end product will benefit just so much more because of it. Some people should consider this: They could've likely gotten a finished product a few years sooner - at the cost of massive feature and freedom and gameplay reductions. You can't have it all sometimes. I see the game in the finishing stretch, sorta, with their 1.0 vision. I'd wager, assuming SQ42 hits in 2026 indeed, that around 2030 or 2029, 1.0 might be ready-ish to deploy, then the game can go 'mainstream' and develop from there as an MMO(RPG) would, I guess. So that's just like 5 more years. I've been here 10 now, so that isn't really much. In some other context 5 years is a lot, but here for the PU component and scope of the game, if it will indeed deliver, isn't actually much to me.

[@kaizammit]

Thank you for hanging out with me. I very much enjoyed this and can see this being the place or game to be playing in the future. You won't be playing, you'll be living in it. Even with all that amazement, it will still be a 50/50 split of people loving it.

[@deadlyrubberduck]

53:12 The escape pod actually explodes but the player cut the view too quickly. An enemy fighter runs straight into it causing the pod to explode into pieces.

[@Checklist_STT]

Gary Oldman's speech gives me chills every time I hear it.

[@fritzbrause1024]

same here

[@Haelda]

I HELD THE LINE

[@SnowTerebi]

The SQ42 entry is the real chill, the whole fleet QT into the battle field is peak cinema.

[@hamlet2kk]

I hear I held the line after 10 years of supporting this game and I cry. Every single time...

[@cainlegacy7784]

It's basically Henry V St. Crispin's Day speech, with enough "modernization" to give it the intended nostalgic flair instead of plagiarism. Top notch.

[@jameslemons7304]

sorta quick backstory/history on the Game Creator: Chris Roberts TL/DR: Chris Roberts has been making video games since the 80's, made the greatest Space Sim game series ever in Wing Commander I-IV, make a hollywood movie based on the WC games, then returned to game design to make Star Citizen, as Persistent Universe game, and Squadron 42, a stand alone story based game to introduce players to the world and game play. Both games have been crowd funded, to the tune of over $758 Million as i write this. Chris started in the 80's making PC games. Around 1991 he came out with Wing Commander, which was the his attempt at a Star Wars in a game experience. You chatted up squadmates and a few people about ship, did a pre flight meeting to learn the mission, then had a create animi style cut scene for launches. Very cinematic for 1991 PC games. Missions also were not static. Win or Lose, the story branched accordingly. Lose too many times, the enemy defeated Earth! It was great for replay-ability, because winning and losing at different times could change the story, also wingmen living or dying affected if they were available later on. There were 4 WC games, III and IV your character was acted out by Mark Hamill in FMV. Tom Wilson, Biff from BTTF was a wingman, John Rys Davies, Gimli from LotR and Indiana Jones fame, Malcolm McDowell (if i remembered the correct McDowell), and others. WCIV was like $10 Million in 1994, an outrageous amount at the time. There was also a game called Privateer, where you played more of a Han Solo type within the WC universe. Also, these games were all played using real flight style Joysticks. it was awesome! He did these with Origin Systems which got bought by EA, so he left and started his own company Digital Anvil. They made a new WC called StarLancer in 1997 iirc, and a new Privateer called FreeLancer a year or so later. MicroSoft bought DA mid development on FL, and pushed for Mouse/Kybd controls because they wanted to sell it as a Games for Win98 title. If you could find an original box or article on Freelancer, Chris's original goal for that game is what Star Citizen is being created to be. Chris left just before the end of the FL development as I recall, as Hollywood wanted to make a movie based on Wing Commander. CR was given permission to direct it. Starred Freddie Prinze Jr among others. Not a super movie, but still fun. CR stayed in Hollywood for the next decade plus. Around 2011 or 2012 he had the idea to come back to game development, as he thought PC gaming was technically at a point he could make his dream game. Basically, a persistent world with NPC's with roles that even if no human was in the game, the NPC's would run merchant deliveries, Pirate, Bounty Hunt, etc. The idea was the game plays itself, and the player simply drops in and becomes just another entity competing for jobs and so forth. This is where Star Citizen, the Persistent Universe game, comes in. He shopped it to every game developer, they all rejected him saying no one wants a Space Sim anymore. Kickstarter was pretty new, so he put together an ingame Trailer with some old friends from his WC days, and launched the KIckstarter. His grand idea at the time was estimated to need $23 Million to make. They made 6.5M off the 2 month kickstarter, and had targets which included the creation of a stand alone single player experience called Squadron 42 (what you've just watched the intro to). The idea is, when you complete SQ42, you can bring that character out of military service and directly into the Star Citizen world. They continued crown funding after the Kickstarter ended via their website. At the end of the first year, they hit the $23 Million number. The problem is, it just never stopped. It doubled by year 2, i can't even recall now when it topped $100M, in CROWD FUNDING. No investors, just gamers so I'll buy future game copies and ingame ships to fund the game. Today, it's well over $758 Million dollars raised. Nov 2024 added $20M alone, which is when this came out. The only "issue" the development has had is, TOO MUCH MONEY! Players kept asking for more, bigger, better, you name it, didn't matter if the tech existed or not, players wanted this game to be EVERYTHING CR and team could figure out. So it just kept getting bigger and more complex, to the point they'd had soo many changes it's unrecognizable from the idea pitched back during the Kickstarter. To wind this up, I can't wait to play thru SQ42. Star Citizen is still a ways off I'm betting. Though, as an old MMO RPG'r, what I find interesting about SC is, it may be the most RPG game ever, yet has no classes. You literally decide your role when you play based on which ship you decide to fly or which station you man on a larger ship, or if you decide to do on foot combat, etc. Your skill, and equipment to some extent, will determine the outcome, not some predefined class that limits your choices. Also, if you liked the move Ready Player One, Star Citizen is the closest game design in existence which could be grown into something like the Oasis. It has that level of ability in it's engine. It just won't happen in the next 10 years.

[@erictayet]

Excellent summary my man! Started with Wing Commander & followed Chris' games. Original backer of the kickstarter & continued to fund the game, albeit small ones.

[@LRGhost88]

@@erictayet Been following and funding since 2018... definitely not small purchases. Please help. XD

[@erictayet]

@LRGhost88 try another expensive hobby like carbon bike. 😂

[@JayAndre562]

Idk about 10 years you speak of. With some of the final tech coming in this coming week (server meshing in 4.0) that is the last major tech blocker. Now everything can be made on the “final” tech systems of star engine which means most everything else should be “easy” to do just takes time. I expect star citizen will have a launch much sooner than 10 years but prolly at least 3-4.

[@Mia-rk9en]

This is not true They can not have many players on a server, the game, stations, cities and planetes are completely empty and lack any life and even that is too much for the servers and the extremely buggy game engine. And the game has absolutely no similarities with ready player one. In ready player one players can play thousands of different games. Punball, tetris, racing in tghe year 2000 and sci-fi in the year 5000. They can change their avatar to anything. Pokemons, monsters and so on. They play with vr headsets only and have a moving floor. This is not a 1000 games in 1 game. This is just a space sim

[@PepicWalrus]

Fun fact about the Vanduul War Chant theme is that its actually chanting in the Vanduul Language. CIG had actual linguists come in and develop fully speakable and written languages for their alien species so you can actually learn how to speak and write them.

[@bandybushido]

but can you play it ?

[@Von_Langstein]

@@bandybushido In SQ42? no, In the MMO they have talked about allowing you to play as a alien race in the longer terms of things. How that will look? idk, My guess is species like the Tevarin that are integrated within the UEE empire

[@mryellow6918]

no wonder they burn through money like a German in the twenties.

[@agonyaunt6325]

What a fracking waste of backers money in a game that is 10 years late.

[@stubbornspaceman7201]

@@agonyaunt6325 What a waste of genetic material that’s goes onto the comments of videos for something they hate just to show off how much they hate that thing.

[@womblissimo6666]

The development "nightmare" stems from the fact that most people compare it to other AAA games developed by major studios. CIG started as a handful of guys in a garage and a pocketful of money. It has taken 12 years to build a studio (in 4 locations around the world and now with 1300 staff) and generated 700M in crowdfunding. There are 2 games "Squadron 42" - this one the single person game, and "Star Citizen" the MMO game which is being developed live action whilst still being in alpha - which is a development nightmare juggling the development of new systems and trying to keep it somewhat playable at the same time. There are plenty of criticisms that can be levelled at CIG for mistakes made - but it is a project unlike any other.

[@opmopadop]

Also it's revenue structure attracts people unfamiliar with development (what Beta software means, let alone Alpha). It's a risk showing unfinished work. Regardless, I'm proud of the CIG team and it's supporters that can see beyond all the nightmares that come with software development.

[@agonyaunt6325]

Ah, the old "they started development in a garage" trope. They started with some early prototyping in 2011 with the help of CryTek. They started crowdfunding in 2012 by showing off what they tried to present as actual in game demo they had made, but was actually a pre-rendered video created by CryTek. It was Chris who was saying it would only take a few million and a 2-3 years to release. By 2013 they had grown to around 30 people in-house and a ton of contractors bringing the staff to around 100. By 2014 they had grown even more, more contractors, more internal staff. CIG kept growing the scope, getting more and more money, but Chris was still on record saying SQ42 would be released in 2015, with SC not far behind. Meanwhile Chris made statements saying more scope wouldn't delay the release of the game as more money would result in more resources and faster development (indicating Chris has never read a book on project management in his life and has never heard of the mythical man month). In 2015 Chris is on record as saying that by the end of the year backers would get everything they pledged for and a lot more. This was a blatant lie. There was no way he didn't know that wasn't going to happen. And here we are, a decade later, and SQ42 still doesn't have a release date, neither does SC, and CIG have taken in over 100x the initial pitch requirements and over 10x the expanded goals requirements. Yes, there are plenty of criticism that can be levelled and CIG, and they continue to deserve to be panned for their years of lies, misrepresentation, and blatant gaslighting of backers. Maybe you remember the pledge? Maybe you remember Chris' statements that they wouldn't be like AAA publishers. That they would treat backers with the same respect as they would a publisher. That last is about the closest thing Chris has come to telling the truth. Chris never respected publishers, and he treats backers with the same respect. Zero.

[@msbolan]

@@agonyaunt6325 even CR didn't understand what was going to be required to make his vision a reality. Technology had to be created in order to make things happen. Did some promises get broken? Sure. IRL, when a visionary promises something, things are going to get changed. That's just how it works. Bitch all you want; none of us knows how to reach the goal line on a project this ambitious. If we did, then by all means, we should present our knowledge to CIG and ask for a job so that we can show them how it's supposed to be done.

[@cinchmccoy]

not a project like any other there are plenty of other scams out there in the world lol

[@watchm4ker]

@@cinchmccoy Scam? No. Developmental nightmare? Oh, yes. It is an absolutely stunning example of how *not* to do games development, as well as a masterclass example of Scope Creep and Technical Debt.

[@isawarenshi]

Also a couple notes. I saw it mentioned but Captain MacLaren (Jillian Anderson) is the daughter of Admiral Bishop (Gary Oldman) so your daddy vibes were in fact correct. Also Rich was playing this on the hardest difficulty so his combat may have been effected by that. And lastly Mark Hamill played the main character in Chris Roberts Wing Commander series. Now he is playing the main supporting character in the Squadron 42 series.

[@the_steamtrain1642]

It was confirmed that atm the difficultly select does nothothing, he just has terrible dev aim

[@PepicWalrus]

He did better during the stage demo tbh. ​@@the_steamtrain1642

[@blizado3675]

@@the_steamtrain1642 He was way better in the live demo on the Citizen Con, but there the game crashed several times and so he decided to do this recording on the same day after the live demo. That must have been late on the evening after an exhausting Con day. I can image he was tiered on that day. I directly noticed how much more worse he have done that fight in the recorded video as I watched it the next day after the live demo. He is the lead designer of SQ42, he played this part of the game a lot before the Con, he should know it very well. Rich Tyrer is the game director of SQ42, only Chris Roberts stand above him, he (both) played that demo a lot before they showed it, he should know that demo very well.

[@zawadlttv]

the highest difficulty shouldnt make your ads sensitivity be equal to your normal sens or maybe even higher like it seemed in the combat clips though

[@madowlbear3325]

In regards to shooting he's not wrong. It's true that Rich doesn't show it in best light in this video, but Star Citizen FPS shooting mechanics are very medicore. It's not bad, but it's also not great. And in other SQ42 videos it looked the same, more like an 2010 era FPS with a glow up rather than what modern games do.

[@blitz8425]

You just earned a fan. Been following this project for years. It's really pushing the limits of what's possible, and they are actively inventing technology to make it work

[@andredbraxton]

The reason those clouds were so clean in the beginning is because they are actual volumetric clouds, no lightboxes used, and I noticed how often you mentioned the lighting, and how well they lit X, Y or Z character, but they actually don't use any fake or "invisible" light sources in any parts of the game. this is all in engine, each light source (even the star that lights the volumetric clouds, asteroids, ships and planet) are all actual light sources in the engine. The characters you see in the screens and displays are actually somewhere else talking into a 'camera' and render to texture is used to display them on the screens in real time. that shot from the planet with the fleet barely visible in orbit is actually from the surface of the planet looking up at the fleet.

[@alexb115]

Imagine, they'll implement ray tracing in this game. Will look insane.

[@phoenixcraft9940]

@@alexb115 They are currently working on the implementation. There's going to have full ray-traced global illumination. They're aiming for software-based GI lighting, so all computers will be able to run it (like Unreal Engine). That's the reason why some of these cutscenes have a bit weird lighting on the characters - they're waiting for RTGI to be implemented.

[@Sieztt]

@@phoenixcraft9940 Both software and hardware RT will be options but yeah, will be actually incredible considering most of the ships in-game have their interior lighting somewhat detached from the rest of the world. Especially noticeable in the cockpit of the Gladius, or when you're going up a ship elevator and the lighting suddenly changes.

[@vorpalrobot]

SC generally uses real lighting but the single player has invisible scenic lighting in many areas.

[@TheRealmsofPsanaurius]

They're also working wanting to bring in audio ray tracing after the visual ray tracing is done and in game.

[@FactoryStandard]

Thank you for your analysis of this. Every "I work in the industry" critic came out of the woodwork intially to say this was not a well formulated experience and it's just nice to see a professional break down why it is what it is (good or bad).

[@arenomusic]

"Starship Troopers without the satire" is the funniest review I can think of, and it's totally accurate

[@CordovanSplotchVT]

So basically the Japanese animated Starship Troopers movies.

[@lluidon]

@@JumboCod91 The 1997 movie was a satire while the source book wasn't.

[@CordovanSplotchVT]

@@JumboCod91 That's getting into a whole big discussion about death of the author and movie vs book. The most accurate point you can get to is that the movie is a failed satire of the book.

[@CNC-Time-Lapse]

Thanks for posting this reaction. It's nice to see someone that has a genuine reaction and the film credits to actually judge it for what it is. I love the story and lore behind this game. It's truly universe building and it feels like there are real stakes and real lives impacted. There is a scene from a previous shot from a much older gameplay video (like 5 years ago) in which Liam Cunningham's character (Captain of an Idris Frigate) reveals to your character in a private conversation that he has regret about his past, and to cherish every moment you have with your family. It's a small detail, be you feel sorry for him because he knows he made mistakes, putting his career a head of his family and will never gain those years lost. That scene makes me tear up when you hear the pain in his voice. That's the kind of detail you want in a good story. You want to KNOW what drives those around you and why they need saving, just as much as yourself.

[@rhetor4mentor13]

all that being real-time, in-engine game assets. the ships have fully defined and highly detailed interiors. it's mind-blowing.

[@rhetor4mentor13]

@@TUROCK320 I finished all 4 phases yesterday, why? Sorry about your 5fps. I have a 1080 and 5800x, and unplayable fps isn't my experience. Edit: also, what does it have to do with the Squadron live demo? All the visuals and camera transitions and cutscenes are all live in-engine, not prerendered.

[@Unknown-ek1ox]

What is mind blowing is the whole background tech behind it. If you have been a backer for some years you'll likely know better compared to someone who joined a time after planet tech or someone who will join once the game hits 'mainstream' but the transition to the planet where civvies evacuate... ...for some it's just a jump cut to a pre-made small map level to imply a bigger city in-lore being shown. But in Star Citizen it's actually a jump to a fully rendered planet with an actual city that exists ingame.Or at least if that isn't PU but only SQ42 content and they still made a small pre-made level, still, the actual planet tech exists in the PU and you go visit any planet, moon or city seamlessly. This in itself is still kinda mind-blowing to me even if it became normal during PU (aka MP, for those who don't know) gameplay. But still sort of mind blowing because when I backed in 2015, this tech wasn't even considered feasible or possible much. They intended for you to take pre-defined "landing vectors" to visit planets or POIs on them like cities. Which would be akin to a loading screen or a soft version of it. And then mere years later they implemented planet tech and you were able to seamlessly land on and depart from planets and POI from any angle imaginable and fly through atmo. Crazy. The concept itself isn't actually really new and was covered in sandbox games various times, but given the tech and lore scope SC aims for, it complements it just so well and is a huge plus for the game. It's something that gives you a natural feel of movement. Take the counter-example Starfield: It doesn't feel immersive much at all to own and utilize a ship for travel. It's a better loading screen hopping simulator. Other than as mobile flying home that may see occasional combat there isn't much real use for a ship in gameplay.

[@moonasha]

probably gonna be the first ever billion dollar game. I really hope CIG delivers.

[@Sieztt]

@@moonasha Second unfortunately, GTA 6 dev costs were reportedly 2 billion dollars.

[@Hamurator]

@@Sieztt Oh yeah. I'm not into GTA but I have no doubts that GTA 6 will be a monster.

[@MattBKn]

A couple of actors that are known to be in Squadron 42 but not shown in this reveal: Ben Mendelsohn, John Rhys Davies

[@GUNNER67akaKelt]

And Rhona Mitra. Oh, and though you don't see his face (as a human) Andy Serkis is one of the aliens.

[@dtroit2]

You put a lot of effort into your review. I actually learned a lot from this tbh.

[@kaizammit]

That's awesome to hear!

[@MaxWoudenberg]

It's past midnight here and I've got to work tomorrow (today actually haha) but I can't stop looking at the sheer eye for detail you have. Normally I passionately hate react content, but with you I'm all for it! Thanks for being so damn fun to watch

[@kaizammit]

Thank you for watching! As one viewer said to me and I like this, it's edutainment. I appreciate your time and I hope you come back to the channel.

[@GarrickMerriweather]

I *LOVE* the whole thing but when Gary Oldman's Admiral Bishop leans in and simply whispers "...Go..." and then the reveal of the actual Squadron 42 flying in flank cover... my heart skipped a beat. *_Star Citizen_* / *_Squadron 42_* *WILL* be the one game to rule them all!

[@berndbuchholz]

He whispers "GO" exactly at minute 42 in the original Video.... thats the Level of Detail....

[@mandrid]

The moment he whispers "go" feels a bit weak, imho... he should have at least pressed a special button on his chair or something, to transmit the order specifically to SQ42. Here, he's just whispering to the bridge, no indication of transmission. Was SQ42 just listening to the bridge chatter this whole time? How would they know if he was saying "Go" to them, or to someone on the bridge? Does Admiral Bishop just need to be careful with what he says and never say "Go" on the bridge or he'll accidentally send SQ42 in at the wrong time? TLDR... needs a very deliberate button press.

[@lolHyperactive]

@@mandrid he sat in the chair so maybe... he was pressing down a button xD?

[@jungfaha]

ready player one in the making.

[@agonyaunt6325]

That's so funny. Why would any commander whisper it. I can imagine that playing out in real life: Commander (whispers): Go .... Commander (again, whispers): Go Second in command: What was that sir? Commander (whispers): I said go Second in command: Sorry, still didn't catch it. Commander (shouting): I said go your morons! GO!!!

[@CRAVTBOARD]

That's the freaking point which is insane, it's all ingame, no cutscense and pre recorded video footage. It's all in game generated.

[@mythicallegendary3992]

well there are cutscenes and pre-recorded video footage, but they made it so it blends in with the playing almost seamlessly

[@N1GHT_ST0RM]

You can also watch the Star Engine Trailer they have put out Last Year. It shows the Engine they built especially for Star Citizen and Squadron because no other Engine could do the stuff they wanted.

[@UPLYNXED]

A one shot flythrough across multiple planets and multiple star systems. A bit less of a "cinematic" video but it definitely shows the strengths of the engine. Definitely a good watch if you want more context on why the game has been taking so long.

[@Billy-bc8pk]

Yup, this is precisely why it has taken so long -- built out all these awesome systematic features.

[@BerraLJ]

Was going to say the same thing, seen it a few times and it still impresses me when i have the game and have played quite a bit.

[@TUROCK320]

@@Billy-bc8pk developper has spoken ? nope i don't think so.

[@alystair]

The Star Engine trailer is so technically impressive because it's an single uncut continuous shot over a universe length spline.

[@dacronicspotgaming6104]

Love the passion you show for the craft you are in, also pointing out all the various camera angles and more. Your enthusiasm is infectious you'd probably be a good teacher of cinema camera work. You gain a sub , keep up the awesome work.

[@TheRealBillix]

You picked an extremely welcoming community to dip your toes in ;) Welcome Citizen o7

[@fritzbrause1024]

o7

[@dolenore]

o7

[@subazaki42]

o7

[@LK32019]

It's crazy that to a lot of people the community is known as a cult but in reality it's one of the nicest communities you can find in gaming

[@DionG5130]

o7

[@205th.capitalstrikegroup6]

It is so refreshing to see a non-citizen's reaction to CIGs work. Too much drama about delays and what not, perfection takes time.

[@ironwarr]

I have been waiting SO LONG for someone with proper knowledge to react to this

[@kaizammit]

I hope I didn't disappoint!?!

[@ironwarr]

@@kaizammit You definitely didn't! And you're not the only one to comment on the gunplay, I'd admit it's a bit janky but I hope they manage to smooth it out on release since they seem to have in the MMO version of this game. Thank you anyway!

[@MickeyMolad]

You didn't. Thanks for reviewing our gameplay session! We can't wait for you to see the real thing. ​@@kaizammit

[@kaizammit]

Let's go!!

[@80KBM]

I´ve not seen a "nude" react like this for SC/SQ for years. Lets us all help KAI with a somewhat "ordered" reactlist. @KAI ZAMMIT If you are getting a lot of react videos, maybe you can do like a poll?

[@Von_Langstein]

Watching this live was truly special, I still get chills watching it even in reaction videos to it. I was so heart broken for the team with the 2 live crashes but I feel it didn't take anything away from my experience. If anything it was like a cold water splash grounding me again and having me think on how incredible a task it is from all these creative individuals to make such a believable world, I came out of it appreciating things even more. Gaming is one of the purest incredible things I have seen humanity make. So much talent from composers, artists ,narrative team, actors, that all just come together to collaborate and make a whole new believable universe. Out of all the horrible traits and things humanity has / done, this aspect of us I will always celebrate and cherish. I know the devs love this project, and I have been along the ride with full faith since 2013. We all put our faith into something. My faith is this team will finally bring the childhood space game my friends and I theorized about over many nights together to reality. I have no doubt Chris Roberts is the man in the gaming industry who is the individual coming closest to being able to pull all this off. Just not as fast as others want. But I'm here for it all, whether I'm a dad by the time it's out or not.

[@rafaelstoll3305]

And Ben Mendelsohn and Jon Rhys-Davies will be in there, too. Sophie Woo and Andy Serkis as well. Craig Fairbrass... Cool Cast.

[@Citizen-Nurseman]

I'm a long term fan of this project and wing commander before this. This intro mssion is hopefully to hook you in, teach you how scared everyone is of the Vanduul and lead you through the basics of the game. because its quite a complex game. I loved how this prologue made you experience the battle from so many perspectives and seeing the same environments in different states, calm, battle, destroyed etc really enjoyed seeing a filmmaker without preconception of the game watching this, felt like watching it for the first time myself, and u noticed so many cool things

[@mtstunr1479]

Liked your video a lot! You should definitely look into this project. The director of game development did this live in front of 3000 fans at a yearly Con for our community and was on the highest level difficulty. It is feature complete and in polishing at this point. What has been taking so long is that this is just one part (the smallest part) of the overall project. This is the single player campaign game, but they are also developing a MMO game of this universe. They built their own engine and their tech from scratch, have updated graphics along the way, and are a private studio. The project is fully funded by crowdfunding, and the MMO is playable in an Alpha state in a persistent universe . The MMO Alpha, is playable for free now until Dec 5th, and several times a year. Hope to see you do more reactions to Star Citizen and Squadron 42 content, thanks!

[@Exilum]

Squadron 42 is the single player game / mode, and Star Citizen is the MMO. In terms of release window, Squadron is the priority they've been focusing most development work to. The game has been in developement for a long time, the kickstarter was in 2012. The initial release window was 2014, but after the unexpected success of the kickstarter, they made a poll as to whether they should maintain that deadline or continue adding stretch goals, the result of the poll was pretty clear. As they continued to raise money over hte years, they also added more and more stretch goals until late 2014 when the last one was achieved. Since then it's been a controversed game. It has the highest budget of any game ever except for maybe GTA 6, and while the alpha of the MMO is available to backers and has been frequently updated over the years, the pace of development was critiqued quite a bit and some resent that things they did early in development were remade or updated later. Of course there is a lot of talk about feature creep, but considering they are just fulfilling every already existing stretch goal, it's not quite exactly that. There is however undeniable scope creep, as the more money the project raised, the higher quality the result they want to put out. While the original idea was closer to what Starfield did (loading screens everywhere, pre-made landing areas, can't go wherever you want), the current Star Citizen has 1:6th scale systems, with seamless transitions from space to the ground and a big focus on systems over scripting. A typical playing session in Star Citizen implies getting out of bed, leaving you room, leaving the appartment complex, taking the transports to go to the spaceport, taking your ship out, going to the assigned hangar, getting in your ship, powering it on, asking for takeoff permission, flying out of the hangar, taking off and leaving the atmosphere, maybe take a mission in passing, and only then can you use your quantum drive to go somewhere. And the quantum drive is fast but not instant, a trip from a planet to another can take 3 to 10 minutes depending on the distance, engine, etc. Of course you also have to manage your physicalized inventory to get what you need from locations if you don't have it already equiped (mainly through the freight elevator, or stored somewhere in your ship). Squadron meanwhile throws out a lot of the immersive elements to focus on being a single player space opera. You still keep the ADN of believability, but you remove a lot of the elements that would bother you in your experience. You don't have for example to deal with a lot of travel time or manage your hunger and thirst. It's meant to be the introduction to the Star Citizen universe, and any player who would want to explore the verse after playing Squadron would go to SC.

[@breadbeard6722]

If you're interested: they made a three part series called "The reunion" (the video without a number contains all parts and is just shy of 10 minutes long). I think a reaction would fit your channel really well. There is also a very old version of something similar to this gameplay trailer. Very Good for comparison. Also shows very different scenes so also a great look into more of the game: Squadron 42: Pre-Alpha WIP Gameplay - Vertical slice And a video of an old in game tour of the UEES Stanton that was named in the trailer: Squadron 42: The morrow tour Took me ages to find this all again lol

[@sora2534]

Bang on amazing reaction btw, your input wasnt garbo like a bunch of other reaction videos, you made good points and said what needed to be said, and i love seeing this from someone who had no idea what it was prior to watching it

[@nicholasrolo886]

I love how much detail they put into the Vanduul aliens. The language is gutteral and snarly as you'd expect from reptilian creatures, but i really love the added details of the dramatic hand gestures. Sometimes you can understand what they're trying to convey even without the subtitles.

[@randlebrowne2048]

Andy Serkis (of Gollum fame) really sold the performance of the Vanduul 2nd in command!

[@GUNNER67akaKelt]

And they had the language created by an actual linguist. So you could learn to speak and write the language should you so choose. The same goes for the other major alien species in the game. Banu and Xian. There's also the Tevarin but not sure if they got a language made for them. There's also Krr'thak(spelling?) an obscure alien species that humans have only heard rumors of. Pretty sure they don't have a language made for them, at the moment.

[@gryphon0468]

@@GUNNER67akaKelt ooh i forgot about the Krr'thak

[@StephenBlane]

Thanks for doing a react on this! I love seeing your insight and understanding all the intricate angles and shot decision-making that is working it's magic subconsciously. If you want to see more gameplay further into the game, you should check out "Squadron 42: Pre-Alpha WIP Gameplay - Vertical Slice". It's now 6 years old and is much more dated as it was much further behind in tech compared to now, but shows an entire mission further into the game. Just going to run through some general info based on what I remember you asking about as you watched. This is entirely in-game footage, not pre-rendered cutscenes, every camera shot, cloud, and lighting technique was all done in a Live build demonstration in-game. They originally showed this at CitizenCon and during the live demonstration of the game it crashed twice (Had to watch them do the turret segment for a lot longer than this video haha). The Dev playing the game Rich Tyrer actually went back to the office after the event and recorded this play through to upload for people so there was a clean run of the game. The devs purposefully do Live demos to show the state of their current progress, every year there is a demonstration and something always goes wrong, but it also shows that it is in fact Live gameplay. This gameplay footage is from "Squadron 42" which is a single player campaign made by the company Cloud Imperium Games (CIG). CIG are also making another game called "Star Citizen" which is a first person shooter, space sim, MMO. Both of these games are being made alongside each other and share the same tech. Funding for this game and Star Citizen has now surpassed $750 million and has been in development for 12 years~. It's a controversial game due to the predatory monetization practices the game uses to fund itself, where it sells spaceships and spaceship packages for up to tens of thousands of dollars. Squadron 42 was also supposed to release in 2016 which adds to the controversy as to why it's been so delayed. Chris Roberts (the CEO of CIG) is infamous for feature creep and is a mjor reason for the long development time. Both games are nothing like they were originally advertised when it first started crowdfunding and it has both pulled in and pushed away a lot of people over the years. To add to the ridiculous cast, the Vanduul are mo-caped by Andy Serkis and his team, John Rhys-Davies plays a role, and so does Ben Mendelsohn. Some cutscenes can also be soft-skipped in sections, due to it all being in-game the player can skip the camera work and just play as dialogue happens, all the characters still have their detail and expressions but the player can walk around or walk away. Not going to be available all the time, but it will help for players who get a bit tired of watching rather than playing. Squadron 42 is also going to have multiple choices, I believe pulling Gillian Anderson's character at the end of this gameplay is one of the optional choices. Choices will have consequences, though we do not know to what degree. In the vertical slice, you make a decision to help someone or complete your patrol. Star Citizen is playable right now but is very buggy, it's also an active Alpha development so performance jumps up and down every update. It's not possible to get a consistent frame rate with any hardware configuration, but performance does slowly improve as time goes on. The tech behind this is so much more impressive than it lets on, every ship has an interior and players can walk around, shoot each other, drive other vehicles (or other ships) inside these ships, all while it's flown by other players, in combat in space or in a planet's atmosphere. These ships can be larger than some multiplayer levels in other games. The devs are also trying to build server meshing to allow thousands of players to play in the same space, and this is required as some ships like the Bengal Carrier (Garry Oldman's ship) requires a crew of over 300+ This game has been a hell of a journey for me as I have been playing it for 9 years now. It's very exciting to see what's coming and where it's going.

[@lurakin88]

1:11:20 It probably doesn's translate too well in video, but the guns do feel very good. It really makes me wish SC ran better because fps combat is a treat in this

[@UPLYNXED]

It's also an SMG in this prologue section, the rifles sound beefier and do have more punch.

[@icedanilzation]

I think rich was using a controller for smoother video movement

[@stratvids]

Also they seem to be missing force reactions when being hit by bullets which goes a long way. The force reactions are in SC so I imagine they just haven't implemented them for the Vanduul yet.

[@amiththomas3884]

the guns feel great now (well, some of them), but in SC the enemy AI and reactions and ragdoll needs work. From what we've seen here, the Vanduul AI needs a lot of work too.

[@WishDragonGaming]

When you get a good server enemy AI and fps combat feel crazy good. @amiththomas3884 Vanduul AI definitely needs more work, but as I said before on a good server the regular "human" AI feels great. Definitely needs some adjustments in some places but with some of the things they've teased that are coming fps will be killer in this.

[@wyattstueven]

Hey there, SC and Squadron enthusiast here. Your main complaint about the gunplay is very valid (I also have complaints about the gunplay in general) buuuuut, the gun you are given for this section is the P8-SC, a small SMG, small caliber. It looks and feels bad in this situation because you're trying to kill a halo elite with a 9mm gun. It doesn't do a lot and doesn't kill very well. Not every gun feels this way in the game but the P8 has always felt pretty underwhelming to me too. You aren't crazy promise.

[@DooganPrime]

The other reason is the caliber has to be small enough that it doesn't breach the Cockpit or the Hull

[@GuilhermeLPC]

LET'S GO!! Finally Squadron 42.

[@kaizammit]

I know, I know. I finally got to it! haha. I hope you enjoy the video and thank you for hanging out with me. K|Z

[@GuilhermeLPC]

@@kaizammit Thanks for believing us with the recommendations!! You should check out their ship trailers which are more commercial, like TV ads. Should be a lot easier to get through since they are very short. I'd recommend the 890 Jump, Hull C, C1 Spirit, RSI Lynx, Anvil F7 MK2 and RSI Polaris to start with.

[@pezz_pezzer]

So yes, to be clear this was all in the game engine even though it had cinematic sections with both scripted cutscenes AND actual gameplay from a player controlling the main character. This is what the actual game will look and play like. Thank you for doing these and glad you enjoyed.

[@bobbyb6053]

This is the prologue of Squadron 42 Episode 1, playtime is supposed to be 30-40hrs when it hopefully releases in 2026. It's a full singleplayer campaign, the multiplayer is it's own game that plays in the same universe and can be played in alpha at the moment, with no full release date in sight. There are 2 more Squadron 42 episodes coming if the first one goes well. And you got daddy vibes off that because he is her daddy.

[@user-ez9ng2rw9c]

2026 eh? I remember when it was 2016.

[@Seijinhawkes]

@@user-ez9ng2rw9c Yeah, and it would've played like Starfield. We'll see if this is worth the wait. Maybe, maybe not.

[@CordovanSplotchVT]

As a backer since 2013 I've learned to add about 3 years to whatever release date CIG announces. And expect them to delay between one third and half of the features to a later unspecified date.

[@stratvids]

@@user-ez9ng2rw9c yes they amened the time line and moved on form 2016 maybe you should too

[@randlebrowne2048]

@@user-ez9ng2rw9c They had a legal dispute with Crytek (who they were licensing CryEngine from) and had to basically start over and create their own engine (Star Engine) instead. That is the main reason for the delay.

[@BlackMage_01]

I have been a backer since 2014 - the cinematic length did worry me a bit i was like "it's more movie than game" but then around the time the EVA (floating in space from scrap to scrap) tutorial hit and I remembered this was essentially the prologue and would probably be cinematic heavy. Your reaction was pretty spot on with long time backers too by the way, you said a lot of the same things i was thinking and talking to my friends about while watching it. You'll fit right in!

[@Brajg]

Chris Roberts is the creator of Wing Commander (and Hamill is in 2 of those games too). Now he is making 2 games following in Wing Commanders step. Star Citizen, which is a multiplayer game in space and Star Citizen - Squadron 42. And that is a single player game in Star Citizen universe. This is games that have been in production in over 10 years so far so hopefully Squadron 42 is released 2026 :)

[@Langlykek]

*2036 we know how this works ;)

[@Traumglanz]

Hamil is in the last 3 Wing Commander Games, but Chris Roberts and Mark Hamill were only together in 2 of the Games as Chris has left EA when Wing Commander V was made.

[@Starbuck.Laniakea]

@@Langlykek actually they have a contractual obligation to release in '26. Soooo ... keep it real eh... Reason Star Citizen took a back seat was the engine needed development ... now they have started the tech migration to star citizen, and from star citizen changes they want back in SQ42. I'm excited to see what comes ...

[@NikeSXT]

@@Brajg And don't forget John Rhys-Davies, played James "Paladin" Taggard in WC III and WC IV. And now we have kinda reunion of this "saint trinity" again, in Squadron 42. BTW, the very first working title for Wing Commander was "Squadron".

[@MjolnirFeaw]

People saif of one of the Wing Commander opus that it was the most expensive game of the movie history (or was it the most expensive movie of video game history ? ) Squadron 42 looks it is Wing Commande with every dial up to 11.

[@odonovan]

The reason the game is taking so long is 1) CIG is developing two games at once (Squadron 42 and Star Citizen), and 2) they asked us if we wanted an ordinary game or to go overboard and 80-some percent of us voted "go big or go home." as a result, they're inventing much of the tech being used for the two games and building a fully functional universe from the ground up. 1:11:22 - The guns aren't louder because he's wearing his helmet. The vanduul are "bullet sponges" because they're wearing combat armor. BTW @kaizammit, if you're ever ingame in Star Citizen, if your character is ever in Orison (city) on Crusader (planet), get in touch. I'll buy you lunch at Whammer's. (Cave in to your cravin'!)

[@lurakin88]

38:11 in Star Citizen (the multiplayer counterpart) being a turret gunner is a full on gameplay loop and role fulfilled by players on ships that have turrets. there is no AI crew yet, so if your ship has turrets and you want to use them, you need someone to control them

[@rlagarinhos]

For me, AI crew will ruin the Star Citizen...... unless the AI has a skill level of a 5 years old child, playing the game with 1 hand and no fingers

[@lurakin88]

@@rlagarinhos yeah I'm not a fan of it either. it will just push the community away from working together and go the easier more convenient route

[@trinityx3o522]

​@@rlagarinhos as long as the NPC crew are as good as the NPC crew in Warframe's railjacks, im cool with it

[@DionG5130]

And you will have to pay those NPC

[@mryellow6918]

@@trinityx3o522 they have decided not to have npc crew for now, and have a system called ai shards in mind you can slot in your ship that will do it for you.

[@KildalSC]

What an awesome react. Love the insights. There is some footage of Andy Serkis doing the "batman" jump you commented on "Squadron 42: Behind the Scenes - Andy Serkis", it's a nice short video to see how far they've come. It's nothing to react to, but as a filmmaker I'm sure you'd appreciate it. If you're interested in doing some more react content for Star Citizen while the iron is hot, I recommend "The Future of Gaming: StarEngine". It shows off their engine used to make both of their games, SQ42 (single player story) and Star Citizen (massive online multiplayer). It's quite cinematic and well made, and it has yet another brilliant composer doing the score.

[@kaizammit]

I'll check it out, thank you!

[@phoenixsui]

in 20212 they were a hand full of people founding CIG the compani who creates this game and Star Citizen the Multiplayer Universe that plays after this Singleplayer called Squadron42. They raised 740Million $ with crowdfunding for both projects and had also to build the whole company of over 1000 employees from it. So its 2 games + infrastructure and equipment and 2 games. Some people say they want to much, but many also love the detail and what they are doing and keep spending money on the funding of this game. Which you do by buying ships you can then fly in the Multiplayer game. Some are just in concept some are flyable (about 200 of them) Right now Star citizen is free to fly until end of November if you want to try it. but i suggest you play with someone who can introduce you to it as it has a steep learnign curve. Cya in the verse. The gun you see is a SMG so its not that powerful. But the game has a huge variety of guns. Some are pretty loud. When you shoot them in a valley you have the echo. I sont like the bullet sponge type enemy. But he chose the highest difficulty. I assume it has to do with that.

[@eve-llblyat2576]

I think the bulletsponge is converted from the multiplayer. Enemy without armor only few bullets. Than there is light middel and heavy armor in different quality. That makes only sense if you need more shots against better amor. And because of that it would feel wird to kill a mighty vanduul to easily. And they want the singleplayer be close to the verse multiplayer.

[@latch9781]

I know it's a typo, but I feel 20212 will be the 1.0 date for SC 😅

[@anthonyrodriguez96]

@@latch9781 by then it wont be a video game, hold the line future brothers!

[@Uncanny_Mountain]

​@@latch9781 that's so clever! What games have you made Princess?

[@cinchmccoy]

stop just stop and come on over and play elite dangerous

[@ElectricWound]

Great to see a filmmaker's perspective on this. About the apparent slowness: There are two points I find important. One is specific to Squadron 42, the other about gaming in general. First Roberts Space Industries, the maker of the game, are all about communicating the vastness of space, the size of the ships and scenery and then detail down to the smallest screw in the machinery and the way you interact with it. So distances are huge and they even had to built one if the first if not the first 64-bit engine to be able to mangage precision at this scale. Everything you see in this first hour of the game is actually there and moving. There are no "background posters" or sprites for distant ships. You are meant to have an uninterrupted first person experience without loading screens to really have this cinematic space opera feel. The second bit is the flow of time which feels completely different, when you are actually interacting in comparison to when you are only watching something. Phases in which the player is active obviously take longer and feel slower, when watching them, while for an actual player it can feel pretty hectic already. The challenge here is communicating a believable flow of parallel threads of events and intense moments with NPCs, instead of separate gameplay with short very condensed cutscenes. It is all in the interest of immersion and I actually did not feel the pacing as too slow. It gives me the chance to take the events and detail in, immerse and locate myself on this space battlefield. Another thing about one of your comments about the speed of ships during the turret scene. The speed of ships has been a long discussion in the whole community and the devs of Star Citizen (the MMO in the same universe) and Squadon 42 (the single player experience), which are actually separate games using the same tech. In space, there is no atmosphere, so basically getting fast is not a problem because of the missing air friction. But this also means, to slow down, you cannot just make use of atmospheric friction, you have to apply thrust, which costs energy. Also relative speeds between ships can become extreme, making encounters very short and very dangerous for collisions. Also taking into account the simulated G-forces applied to pilots in turns at such high speed, lead to the result that (dog) fighting ships would actually move much slower. There's also this element of manually controlled ship guns and turrets, which in a high tech universe would obviously be controlled by targetting computers, but we wouldn't have a game then. The whole intended feeling for SQ42 is more in the area of WW2 in space.

[@SeliGYT]

Great reaction bud! So many reaction videos the guy just sits there, but you clearly know what you're talking about! Really enjoyed watching your face lol I am a huge Chris Roberts fan, this game is an interactive movie basically. A birth child to his previous games Wing Commander, with WC 3 and 4 being like this staring Mark Hamill

[@kaizammit]

I was told by the wife that my face tells you exactly what I'm thinking and that I'm to overtop when watching stuff... Hence the channel was born haha! Thank you for hanging out with me and watching, means a lot. K|Z

[@FlesHBoX]

I love seeing the perspective of someone who doesn't have a clue about the game. As an original backer from 2012 it's easy to forget that not everyone has close knowledge of the game. Seeing this live at citizen con was amazing, even with the crashes and bugs that lead to Rich heading back to the office to record and upload this clean version. I cannot wait to play through this myself.

[@Bloomer_ow]

Squadron 42 is a full solo game. They are making another game at the same time, called Star Citizen, which is an MMO in this universe, using the game engine and the same ships.

[@SaberOW]

So yes, Squadon 42 is a full fleshed out single player campaign. But there is basically a whole other game being made that is multiplayer. Star Citizen. They're basically porting over stuff from the single player as they go and working on both simultaneously.

[@grygaming5519]

I also think people forget....Chris Roberts directed Wing Commander (1999) so the prologue and cinematography has all his hallmarks. Even the 1999 film has similar shots to the one in the trailer. Also Squadron 42 coming at the 43 minute mark. If you paid attention the squadron has 3 ships that are torpedo heavy bombers (think B-1 Lancers) with F7-A Mk II Hornets (F-15's) F8-A Lightning II ( F-22) and Sabers (F-35s) fighters. The sabers are Stealth combat fighters so they do not show up on the Vanduul radar screens but in frame the whole squadron is there. Another side note at 1:11:00 the combat scene. its half scripted but in Lore the Vanduul are more or less like Klingons. The weapon being used is an 10mm SMG. Great against people but vanduul armor is a bit thicker. The MC themselves is wearing a Light Armor kit with minimum defensive capabilities vs a Shock Troop. Even headshots against Vanduul, you need a bit due to their natural hide being sturdy. At least I hope.

[@disvoiced326]

The face change when you heard Admiral Bishop's 'go' was the best!

[@NikeSXT]

That's right. At 47:05 there are no subtitles given, and that's a glitch - the game is still in the polishing phase. But the second in command vanduul just said: "See what your bloodlust cost us!" And yes: first name - because she is his daughter:)

[@randlebrowne2048]

Also, that 2nd in command Vanduul is played by Andy Serkis (of Gollum fame)!

[@webchef3038]

this is a true space opera Kai! thx for covering, this is all in-game footage.. wild huh

[@kaizammit]

Very wild!

[@generalpluto369]

Well damn you just made my thanksgiving, never would have thought to see you react to star citizen! They have some great ship advertisements also btw!

[@kaizammit]

I've heard, I might have to check these out. Happy Thanksgiving!

[@generalpluto369]

@@kaizammit Thanks! Also figured id answer a few of your points in the vid on the game background :) -the game has been in dev for a bit, around 2012 was the announcement for Star Citizen, which is the open universe slice of life sim with all career paths and stuff, Squadron 42 was tacked on at that point to the Kickstarter and they Mo capped the actors in 2015. Its meant to be a bit more cinematic as its a intro of sorts to the universe at large, still a fully fledged campaign, somewhere around 40-50 hrs. However beating it makes you a UEE citizen in the open world which grants you some nice bonuses. -It also has probably the most dedicated community, I think its raised somewhere around 750 million to this point but they've also had to completely reinvent the wheel with backend development on things like a completely persistent universe and server shards to have thousands of people in close proximity without lag at release. Its definitely marketed as a second life in space game, with organizations and the ability to crew and build the largest capital ships in the game with all real people managing logistics, engineering, flight ops, etc. Its been a very long road for us fans but its finally getting there, personally I've used star citizen as a benchmark for all my new gaming PC's since as you can imagine its very resource intensive. Edit: Someone pointed this out and it may not be react content but if youre interested in the game this is the title on their channel of a pretty good view into it "The Future of Gaming: StarEngine (4K)". Its also the longest virtual camera spline ever, 6 billion km long.

[@paulocorreia2482]

Well, a bit of background about production. Chris Roberts was a lead programer on an old game called Homeworld. This game is his dream he was obsessed about for years. This was the biggest Kickstart project of its time. It took a lot of time because of Chris' demands. He wanted, in 2014, to create a 10k megapixel graphics (because he knew it would take a lot of time to do it), no load screens of outside/inside ship, everything happening in real time, every single display has real useful data, and designing that alone was hell, ship physics to a subsystem level (got one thruster damaged? you'll have to recalculate how your ship handles, I hope you have a goddamn hell of a navigation system, otherwise you're doing it manually). His perfectionism created a huge monster that looks like it's paying off. I think this is the most absurdly obsessive ambitious project I've ever seen, being backed up by more than 700 million dollars. So, yeah, it took 12 years, some companies wouldn't be able to do anything near it in 20 (Ubi- cough)

[@IronScytheGamers]

A- you need to play Star Citizen... B- there is a live trailer for the star engine they are using that you should have watched before this, it REALLY shows you how far they have come and where this is all leading. and its all done in universe too.

[@MjolnirFeaw]

A- I think he said he hoped it wasn't some multiplayer game.. which kind of the point of Star Citizen isn't it ? I for one hope SQ42 will be the single-player story-driven game it looks to be in this sequence. Some of SQ42 will end up playing SC, most of us won't.

[@jordanmackay6746]

@@MjolnirFeaw Its multiplayer but you can completely avoid pvp if you want. There is tons of pve stuff to do.

[@MjolnirFeaw]

@jordanmackay6746 I expected pve contents but.. Is there some system to prevent a pvp player to ruin your day? (I've had tons of bad Expérience with pvp players)

[@Von_Langstein]

@@MjolnirFeaw A hard coded system? the closest would be existing in lawful sectors. If you are attacked, AI UEE military will show up GTA wanted style to protect you. Outside of lawful areas / less policed, its expected you your self will defend your own assets, be that through your own weapons, or enlisted help from others

[@jordanmackay6746]

@@MjolnirFeawThe community is friendly so there is only a small portion is pirates and if you don't have a warrant, they will get a prison sentence if they kill you.

[@AdamLop314]

You know when I watched it the first time, what they did with the camera made me feel like they were heavily inspired by the way space battles were done in Battlestar Galactica. They always did the zoom in and outs and it just was super captivating.

[@phantomwraith1984]

Gary Oldman wont snuff it. Admiral Bishop is one of the most accomplished admirals in the UEE and is heading the project for humanity's super dreadnought named the Retribution. The Kingship Killer

[@cv368]

Great to see this project can still make outside viewers that excited. The really astounding part about all of this however (except for the whole thing making for a good movie by itself) is that this entire prologue is strictly speaking just the tutorial mission for the actual game´s single player campaign

[@Vaffi]

If you want to see more of the technical side, maybe give the "Squadron 42:I held the line" trailer from 2023 a watch. It gives you an idea of the improvements CIG made over the years since filming most of the actors mocap scenes. And also some better idea about the gameplay mechanics. While this trailer was the prologue, the 2023 gameplay trailer als shows much more late game artwork than what have been shown during the battle.

[@santiagonguyen4054]

As a musician i had some fun analysing all the different themes, like when you see the uee fleet theres a specific theme playing, or when you go back to main character after a cutscene theres always the "tu tu tu tuuuu tutu"

[@PrimalMoz]

Love watching people watch this for the first time :) i wish i could watch this for the first time again :)

[@alexb115]

Was very interesting to see your view on this trailer. This project was a bumpy road, from asking funds from a kickstarter with 50 peoples behind a demo, to millions and millions of funding (now up to $750M), having to rewrite the whole graphic engine for their vision, discovering the seamless planetary tech in 2016 and restarting everything almost. Team grew up to over a thousand employees. That's a massive ramp up and it takes time to get everyone efficient, finding your leadership, etc. Feature creep for the MMO game which requires server tech that took years to make, just about to be out of testing actually, gobbled up a lot of ressources on the team of course and why it's taking so much time but, considering that they found the seamless tech in 2016, 10 years to develop a massive single player of this magnitude, and an MMO, is not so bad, considering that veteran studios like Bethesda took 8 years and $400M to make a shoddy single player. But Squadron 42 is a full single player space opera. Everything in real-time, everything. Even the shot at 16:59 in your video, goes from space to planet level and loads a city and STILL keeps the ships in the sky (you see their glint) is from their insane graphic engine tech that seamlessly loads from huge distances. They didn't fake it with like a reserved loading room like games do typically, they went full authentic. It's why it allows those super neat zooms from a space battle and the camera creeping inside the alien ship and then get to a few inches from the face of one. By the way, guess who plays the alien? Andy Serkis. Totally bonker project, out of any proportions. No publisher would have ever made this. It's why its crowd funded. Check also their graphic engine demo from 2023. kzbin.info/www/bejne/pIjQkIKefrCgqZosi=Kab37MpbbdV6KCrp Nothing like it in gaming.

[@seldogrif9732]

24:43 The reason why it looks like actually miniatures, because those all ships are real in-game assets. Each ship is intended to be available for players to fly and explore in Squadron 42 and Star Citizen, so they are designed in 1:1 scale with fully made interior and exterior. Also, leaving the approach question aside, one of the major income of CIG is selling ships in Star Citizen and because of that they really have a high set bar for ship designs, especially in recent years. So ships are usually made with a major attention to detail and hence why feel here like miniatures.

[@Verbose_Mode]

I didn't see anyone saying this so I'll info dump: The project is _Star Citizen,_ a online massively multiplayer space sim with a (I'm not joking) 650 _million_ USD budget that has been in development for thirteen years. What you just watched is the intro level of _Squadron 42,_ the single-player game being made alongside the MMO that serves as the prequel. Both are full games and they are putting everything they got into them. Notable of why it's taking so long and so much money is the tech to make this game literally did not exist when they started: they had to make it and user-end tech had to catch up. This is like trying to film James Cameron's _Avatar_ on a practical set. There is a lot of controversy around this since it's so bloody expensive, so people are watching it closely and are very worried about it being a bust... but most stuff looks promising, even if the early-access is borderline unplayable.

[@gabzsy4924]

I'm a Star Citizen backer since 2020 and you're spot on. The gameplay is still a bit janky but the cinematography and direction is absolutley spectacular. You can tell a real director is behind this project. I'll be honest, seeing this trailer as a SC player is weird because every real citizen can tell you that the game has a long road ahead to flash out most of its mechanics, but obviously, since Squadron 42 is a single player experience this will be mitigated and somewhat easier to deal with. The Starengine is the real star of the show and it holds true even in SC. I'll recommend you to check out the project and try it out for yourself, but be warned the game is in Alpha, there's many frustrating bugs, it's not really a game yet, more like a tech demo and lastly....the company behind this project has some questionable sales tactics, but don't be put off by it, get a pack of around 40 to 80usd max and nothing more. It's all you need to play.

[@Arthillis]

As someone whos been following the game for a long time and backed it awhile ago I don't think the game has questionable sells tactics. When I look at all the other games with loot boxes and other gacha mechanics this game is tame by comparison. Companies need to make money or they can't keep the lights on. I think they have been fair when you make purchases in telling people that things are not nailed down, it's alpha, and stuff is subject to change and by making a purchase you are "backing" a project. If people don't read the fine print with ANY purchase of any kind from any store, they have no one to blame but themselves. When i first backed back in 2016 I did so with the full understanding that a game might never get released. I had seen other crowd funded projects fall apart. I even went into it with full understanding that I might not even like the game when it comes out. I backed it because i wanted to see what they could do.

[@gabzsy4924]

@Arthillis if others use loot boxes and gotcha mechanics they are also questionable. What even is this comment? You wrote a wall of text for what? CIG uses FOMO all the time, there's a whole game inside the game that is basically CCU chaining just to push people to spend more. They even nerf some ships just to sell the new ones. Prices are absurdly high, pledge or not, people are driven by desire and fomo and now in the community is considered normal to spend hundreds if not more on ships. It skewed the value of pixels vs money for many. We all do what we want with our money and are responsible for it, but to say that the sales tactics are not questionable is just plain wrong.

[@MrEspaldapalabras]

@@gabzsy4924 Meanwhile people are making SW mods for other games in their free time that draw more interest than this long running grift.

[@Heathy87]

I accept that this game isn't cheap to make, having some sort of revenue stream while the game is being created is fine with me, currently I CCU'd into the starlancer and I also have an ursa medivac I can carry around for respawning. any other ship I want I can just grind money in game and buy it. then you have the fact that these multi crew ships aren't going to function properly being piloted alone, so out of a group of 4+ friends, only one of you needs a multi crew ship. I have a starlancer so if I had 3 or more friends they only need a starter package for 20$ (sale) and they can tag along and be my crew, ill help them do missions until they can afford their own multicrew ships. There isn't anything to miss out on if you can buy all these ships in game. The only reason you should be spending more than the starter pack price is if you want to support the creation of the game. Any of the big star citizen youtubers and streamers will tell you the same thing. Buying an obnoxiously large capital ship with a 20-30+ crew requirement is only worth it if you have 20-30 friends who can crew it for you. Or you can play the game, pool your funds and save up for it as a goal to work toward.

[@SirPeasant]

1:09:51 I love by this point he's completely immersed and just starts using statements like “that is fucken cool”. That's how you know you hit the mark!

[@Rantandreason]

Here are some things to keep in mind - The game uses 64 bit architecture. So normal games (32 bit) are around 8 miles cubed for a play area. This game is 10 million miles cubed. And they are also working on server meshing, which will make the game virtually infinite if they want - The clouds you saw were not pre-rendered. They have developed a "cloud tech" which creates those clouds - At the moment, they are at like $750M for their game budget, and it is all crowd funded - They put ALOT of work into the NPCs. Random dialogue. Behaviours. They are even on a set schedule, so they will be on duty for X amount of hours, then the mess hall, then the games room, and then bed. - The screens will display in game news, as well certain ships will be able to broadcast "news". You can see your own reflection in mirrors. And when you're in your ship and you talk to your friends, they will see your face talking - What you are watching is not the final version. Squadron 42 has been labelled as "feature complete" by CIG, so now it's all about polishing everything - Keep in mind what I said about the size of each server, being millions of miles. That scene where it goes from the fleet to the planet surface, if you were on that surface, you could watch that fight happening as it happened. If you see a space station from a planet surface, you can fly straight to it. No loading screens. No tricks. It is physically there. - Those ships are physicalized. They are MASSIVE, and completely rendered. You can walk inside, around. Everything works in them. Other games will have ships that are basically a shape with a skin on it. - "Do you fly ships? Is it just a first person game?" that is a HUGE question. Yes you fly ships. You can dog fight, mine, explore, build, run cargo, salvage, do bounty hunting, be a space pirate. You can be a space medic. You can basically be a space taxi. A space tow truck. Be a hacker. Do covert missions to gather data then sell the data. race space ships. race ground vehicles. - This is actually 2 games. They both use the same tech to run them. Squadron 42 is the single player campaign that will come out in 3 chapters. Star Citizen is the massively multiplayer game. - "The smoke on the god rays looks real" that's because it is. That is the cloud tech - "We're just on a turret" yes, you can do that. So those big ships will be able to be crafted and/or purchased on game, and you will need entire Orgs (guilds) worth of people to man them. Some people will do engineering, will be gunners, radar operators, hackers, counter hackers, part of a boarding team etc. "It's got half a wing and it's still flying" that's the physicalized thing I keep mentioning. If you get shot in a wing, the wing falls off. If you get bullets through your hull, they could damage a component. Large ships will run the risk of catching on fire, and you will need people to play firefighter while others re-route power to/from other parts of the ship to make sure critical components keep functioning

[@NotUnymous]

Still Sounds crazy is listed like that. My wild guess is that we are about 5 years away from their 1.0 release. But imo every second will be worth the wait. Its a crazy project to make childish fantasies come true

[@Rantandreason]

@@NotUnymous sounds about right. My guess has always been that SQ42 chapter 1 will release, then chapter 2 the following year, chapter 3 the year after, and then Star Citizen 1.0 will launch the same year or a year after chapter 3 Once they finish all their polish on SQ42, all hands move to Star Citizen and it will go much quicker.

[@the_steamtrain1642]

you're talking about SC not SQ42 which the entire video is about...

[@Rantandreason]

@@the_steamtrain1642 i'm talking about both, seeing as they use the same game engine

[@ebolawarrior451]

@@the_steamtrain1642sc and sq42 go hand in hand.

[@zealworkbench1085]

As one of the first backers of Squadron 42 and star citizen AND game maker/3D creator myself i'm always stunned by the project quality, fun fact is i learned a lot in my job just by playing on Star citizen and looking their commercial videos or the different trailers, but seing that even a pro is almost shocked by the quality kinda makes me realize better how much their work is great and how much i've learned myself cause i'm now able to make the same things in my own projects (i mean for models/textures/level building, i still have a lot to learn about lighting, shadowing and all this really important stuff).The fact is squadron 42 will be solo player because it's meant to be the campaign of the Massively Multiplayer game Star citizen, this project is not an open world but an open universe where you can be who you want to be, do anything, there will be no limit about your experience in game, there will be Huge battles in co-operation or between player's organisations, mining corps, military corps, Merchants corps, Bounty hunters Corps, Pirates , absolutely anything you would like to be. Some new players of star citizen don't understand all the work that have been made from start or how much those project are insane, it's understandable because they don't know the backscene as we do...Anyway, i'm still proud to be a part of the people supporting all of this and as we often say between backers as a li'l joke "I held the line!"

[@soaphelps]

henry cavill called them and said i want in and ill do it for free. the amount of actors and actresses in this is nuts, there is an imdb page for squadron 42. all the alien languages are made from scratch and are learnable and writeable. the effort of every part of this and star citizen is part of the reason its taken so long. the lore is deep. squadron 42 will be 3 episodes.

[@kaizammit]

Amazing!

[@Kallax2]

wait, can you explain the 3 episodes? Is it gonna be 3 games, or just 3 main chapters in the game?

[@BalokLives]

@@Kallax2 Three games that will come in episodes. This first episode is supposed to provide 30-40 hours of gameplay.

[@juicebowl]

​@@Kallax2just like the Witcher 1, 2 and 3.

[@soaphelps]

@@Kallax2 i think the third episode will be you joining squadron 42. the way it was supposed to be was when you finish the single player you "retire" into star citizen. depending on choices made and what not through the campaign is who you know (npcs and such) and things you can do from the start of multiplayer. at least thats what was talked about many moons ago.

[@Furnace2552-cz8iy]

1:00:00 The studio making this game has spent the last 12 years rebuilding their engine, making this game, and making an MMO in the engine. They're approaching the end of their core engine development so they should be able to start working on both games in ernest. Squadron 42 is feature complete but still has a lot of little things to finish.

[@Jsfun]

You should do BedBananas' The War for Jumptown. This is the single player game, Star Citizen is the currently playable MMO using the same tech in the same world, although it's an early alpha. The War for Jumptown is a super cool, well-edited roleplay between some friends as they take on a huge org fighting for a facility that will make them rich. They also have a prison escape one, and another where they visit the annual in-game convention.

[@WirableCrown1]

To my understanding, the reason the game is taking to long is due to two reasons. First, it became a much larger game than originally intended. Two, they used one game engine, and didn't like it, they switched to another newer game engine, still did not like it. So they MADE a game engine, so they are making a brand new next-generation game engine while making the game. You are seeing the demo for the Single player military portion of the game. The game will be an MMO on a scale and with detail never seen before. This game will be the metaverse. Please correct me if I am wrong, it has been a while since I got a news update on the game. It also holds the world record for crowdfunding, right now it is at 768 million USD from people backing the game through pledges and buying flyable ships in playable alpha.

[@ironman98]

You are mostly correct. However Squadron 42 is actually a stand-alone game that takes place within the Star Citizen (The MMO portion) universe. 2 entirely separate games made by the same game studio being made at the same time, both entirely crowd funded. That's why everything takes so long. Plus yes you are correct, they are and have and continue to make and improve upon their own custom bespoke game engine built off of Amazon's lumberyard game engine but customized and modified beyond its original recognition to something totally unrecognizable and entirely bespoke to what the developers want and need.

[@liamalexander8296]

I would love to see you watch the ship ads!! Some are dated, but another few are beautiful as hell.

[@michaelbeemer8019]

“Honey, I got the ice cream you wanted…”

[@TheMNWolf]

That missing subtitle you mentioned was a glitch, because this entire demo is done in engine. The missing subtitle should have been "Look at what your bloodlust has cost."

[@whatwayzup]

@1:18:45 I thought "You need to check out Kojima's games like Metal Gear Solid" but you we're already on it. Personally, I love what the uniquely interactive element of games can add to storytelling when combined with traditional cinema and I value games more as an experience than as a toy. Video games are undervalued in the mainstream considering what they can offer in regards to their ability to engage the viewer in the experience via their direct interaction and agency with the characters and worlds, not to mention the playthrough time of a game compared to the runtime of a movie. After playing through God of War 2018 and Ragnarok I was deeply emotionally invested in the characters of Kratos, Atreus, and Mimir to a degree that I don't think traditional cinema alone could replicate.

[@Nemoticon]

The creator of this game is Crhis Roberts who is responsible for a lot of space games going back to the 90s, including Wing Commander back in 1990 - the first cinematic/interactive movie game starring Mark Hamill (with Squadron 42 being a spiritual successor to that first game). In the movie industry, Chris Roberts is producer for a number of box office movies such a Lord of War, Lucky Number Slevin and Outlander.

[@REiiGN15]

Player in the demo was the actual Game Director. They have discussed you'll get better skills as you evolve in the game. This is the start of the game.

[@LuxO2__]

They recorded London Symphony Orchestra for the soundtrack btw :) Not sure if it's the this demo but it's confined for the release

[@passeeo3631]

What a great watch this was. You picked up on the immersive elements really quickly and it was interesting viewing this through the eyes of someone who pays attention to the finer details. The appreciation of the fact that this prologue makes you feel quite a small piece of a bigger world is something not echoed by a fair few people who are impatient to see us thrust into a cockpit and dogfighting. Definitely some pacing issues with the turret sections hopefully they tweak and the QTE needs to improve. The gunplay in game(Star citizen) is pretty good although that submachine gun isn't particularly great in terms of feel and sound. Also i think a lot of jank comes from the guy clearly using a controller which makes gunplay look like crap.

[@kaizammit]

Thank you for hanging out with me, it's awesome K|Z

[@hakonsgaming535]

So some basic info on what this was. It's not a tech demo or a trailer, this is the first mission of the game. Squadron 42 is the spiritual successor to the legendary wing commander series. Wing Commander was created by Chris Roberts who left the games industry to become a Hollywood Producer, and then came back to games in 2012 to kickstart Squadron 42/Star citizen. That's why there are so many A listers in it, the guy heading up the project has a lot of holywood connections, there are a bunch more well known talents involved that you haven't seen yet. They've been in development since, they've raised 750 million dollars in crowd funding (not as big as you think GTA6 is rumored to have a 2 billion dollar budget), Squadron 42 is a full single player flightsim/fps that itself acts as an extended character creation for Star Citizen which is a persistent universe online game where you can do practically anything from mining salvaging hauling and combat both on the ground and in the air and space. Basically this game is your X-Wing/Tie Fighter/Wing Commander/FPS story game that then has a full multi star system universe that you can take your character into and live out their life after they leave the military. They've gone way above and beyond, creating multiple fully fledged working alien languages, 1/4 scale fully realized planets that are completely physical and you can go from ground to space seamlessly. They've basically rebuilt the entire cryengine and invented what amounts to a new netcode and server architecture to do all this, that's why it's taking so long, no one has ever done anything remotely on this scale before.

[@taraskywalker453]

Thank you for enjoying our game. We've all funded it and watched for over 10 years. And there's a multiplayer MMO ("Star Citizen") for when you finish your military service. We're getting there. It's been awhile, but it's all coming together plain to see.

[@tomgerasch560]

With the game we can really say “our game” I've spent more money on this game in the last 11 years than on my entire Steam, GOG library and haven't regretted a single cent..... I've spent almost 5000 hours in the game so far and there's always something new to discover :D

[@raging_naclholic4636]

Another thing you might not have noticed was there was lens aberrations but I believe its only when you have a helmet on to mimic the light refraction on the visor as your walking around all these pretty lights! great video tho! another note is that the map is actually rendered in 3d then put inside of the ui, expensive but a dope trick that allows them to do alot of fun stuff with it

[@Rantandreason]

The reason things were taking so long to kill, is that if you watch the very beginning he chose the hardest difficulty level Also, what you just watched is the prelude to the game and is partly supposed to be training on how the game works which is why you go through things like learning how to put on gear, how to follow markers, how to lock on to targets and switch between firing modes. The game, from that point on, will open up more and be like a Cyberpunk type experience where you are running missions on The Stanton and Mark Hamill is your guide for it So that part you just watched is only the opening of the game, that sets up how you become a space fighter pilot

[@drafezard7315]

If difficulty level just gives enemies more health, turning them into bullet sponges that's the least interesting thing they could do. Immersion for this game may be 10/10 when it releases but the gameplay looks like a 2/10 so far. Hard pass from me. 12 years of development and 3/4 of a billions dollars and it looks to have the most blatantly generic combat. Smh.

[@Ryecrash617]

It was great to watch this through fresh eyes as I have been a backer of the project since 2014.

[@pierre-mariecaulliez6285]

Star Citizen is supposed to be a multiplayer massive simulation game : everything takes time to make ! Traveling, moving around, trading, eating, all of it meant to be realistic. Squadron 42 is the single player spinoff with more emphasis on story and gameplay over simulation of space life ;7

[@twilink5810]

it is multiplayer they just make apatch for testserver (ptu) with 500 playuers by shard (universe) and 4 servers managing each systems so 8 DGs for the two systems pyro and stanton.

[@hukl3945]

Surprised you didn't mention Battlestar Galactica as an influence - seems very obvious to me especially in the fleet battle :)

[@StarCitizenSpeakeasy]

if you got a bit bored from time to time it's because it's meant to be played not watched. it's actually the first level of the game. also, i echo the sentiment to watch StarEngine demo

[@TheMNWolf]

I can feel the fingerprints of the Battlestar Galactica cinematography all over this and I am so sold. I've been a backer for over 10 years, but I've never been as excited as when they showed this.

[@rivaj]

In 2009 my friend and me wondered how we imagine an immersive star trek game, what is combine Elite Force and Bridge Commander. I am sure this game is very close to that theoretical discussion. :D

[@kaizammit]

You're telling me. I can see people not leaving their homes for years, maybe for groceries but that's it.

[@juicebowl]

​@kaizammit Don't remind me. I was playing Star Citizen, the mmo component over the summer and I spent too much time pirating people. Never really imagined myself being a pirate, but stealing a full Hercules C2 of RMC was too profitable.

[@FullBitGamer]

@@kaizammit Kai, grocery stores (in America at least) deliver right to your front door now hahaha. No leaving required!

[@kaizammit]

@FullBitGamer animals! 😂

[@delando9003]

Amazing video, from your reactions I can see you're passionate about your craft. Seeing a reaction from someone who had no idea about the project and being this excited was great. I do agree the gunplay wasn't the best, though it was being played on the hardest difficulty (hence the gun spongey bad guys) plus the gun being used was only an smg. But definitely got yourself a sub. Great content!

[@liamseven1604]

People were complaining that there wasn't enough gameplay but this is literally the prologue, your supposed to get to know the lore, plus it was only like 24min of cutscenes so not really that bad.

[@theforgottenguise7971]

yeah i remember the complaints after citcon about how it was 80 percent cut scene but was only 30 percent its just so good it takes over

[@trinityx3o522]

Let me guess, they never played any Metal Gear game? Kojima & CR have the same ambitions & interests in that regard. Just that Chris hasnt put himself in an active mission in SC yet lmao

[@anthonyrodriguez96]

@@trinityx3o522 metal gear solid nails its cinematography. i do usually dive into game lore for the different games ive played, but mgs is on an entirely other level with an absolute fuckton of mental trickery

[@Hippida]

Not when the cut scenes look This good

[@ESC_907]

Those ‘pipes tear me up every time… Also love the flabbergasted remark about budgeting after only seeing the first two stars!