Development timeline

The development of Star Citizen is ongoing; beginning with the start of crowdfunding and continuing today.

The following sections show the features and mechanics added to Star Citizen in each year and month, as well as the major tasks undertaken by the different studios.

Early thoughts
In 2011, Chris Roberts was scoping out game development trends and thinking about doing a big console game, possibly under the Wing Commander brand, with funding from a publisher. However he felt that wasn’t so interesting and he wanted to control his own destiny, not work for a major publisher. He eventually focused on the PC, where technology is moving far ahead of consoles and where the game would be free of considerations towards console generations.

Pre-Production
Chris Roberts spent over a year building the game's backstory and creating a prototype in CryEngine that could be presented at campaign launch. Using their own funds, CIG engaged a small group of writers, designers, and engineers to assist in this process.

2014
2014 is marked by the release of Arena Commander and other mechanics