Development team

The development team of Star Citizen consists of over four-hundred people are currently employed, working on making the game a reality in a distributed development process. From the west coast of the United States to Frankfurt, Germany, highly-skilled, passionate people toil, making breath-taking progress all the time. On top of Cloud Imperium Games' in-house studios, many contractors and partners have contributed into the project.

As of 2018-02-16, CIG has a total of 475 staff working on Star Citizen.

Cloud Imperium Games, LLC (Santa Monica (Los Angeles), California, USA)


Located in sunny Los Angeles, California, CIG LA is Cloud Imperium’s flagship studio. Home to Chris Roberts and much of the company’s leadership, CIG LA represents a cross-section of the company and includes the ship development pipeline, technical designers, high level engineering, community, marketing and more.

As of 2018-02-16, CIG LA has a total of 75 staff working on Star Citizen.

Notable members

 * Mark Abent - Lead Gameplay Programmer
 * Elwin Bachiller - Lead Ship Artist
 * Sandi Gardiner - Vice President of Marketing
 * Jared Huckaby - Associate Creative Producer
 * Ben Lesnick - Director of Community Engagement and Content Strategy
 * Pete Mackay - Game Designer
 * Chris Roberts - Chairman & CEO
 * Forrest Stephan - CG Supervisor
 * Chris Smith - Lead Vehicle Artist
 * Sean Tracy - Technical Director, Content
 * Will Weissbaum - Senior Writer
 * Eric Kieron Davis - Studio Director LA / Production Lead U.S.
 * Josh Herman - Character Art Director
 * Kirk Tome - Lead Systems Designer
 * Elwin Bachiller - Lead Ship Artist
 * Dave Haddock - Narrative Director
 * Steve Bender - Animation Director
 * Steven Hosmer - Senior Systems Designer
 * John Pritchett - Senior Physics Programmer
 * Justin Wentz - Concept Artist

Cloud Imperium Games Texas, LLC (Austin, Texas, USA)


The team at Cloud Imperium Games Texas’ Austin studio (Bee Cave, Texas) is responsible for making the Star Citizen persistent universe a reality! From character artists to engineers, CIG ATX is a creative hotspot tasked with making an entirely new kind of game. The crack DevOps team is also located in Austin, keeping servers running and building out the infrastructure that will be needed to make Star Citizen sing.

As of 2018-02-16, CIG Austin has a total of 71 staff working on Star Citizen.

Notable Members

 * Tony Zurovec - Director of Persistent Universe
 * Rob Reininger - Lead Technical Designer
 * Elijah McNeal - Concept Artist (Former Member)

Cloud Imperium Games Ltd. (Wilmslow (Manchester), Cheshire, UK)


Formerly known as Foundry 42, Ltd. The heart of Manchester, England is also the heart of Star Citizen’s Squadron 42 single player game. This fully-equipped development team is responsible for creating a unique cinematic experience in the Star Citizen world. A AAA game in itself, Squadron 42 is using groundbreaking cinematic techniques and best-in-the-industry game design to craft a narrative you won’t want to put down.

As of 2018-02-16, F42 Manchester has a total of 234 staff working on Star Citizen.

Notable members

 * Erin Roberts - Studio Director & Global Head of Production
 * Todd Papy - Star Citizen Live Director
 * Paul Jones - Art Director
 * Zane Bien - Global UI Creative Director
 * Joe Neville - Senior Vehicle Artist
 * Corentin Billemont - Systems Designer
 * Derek Senior - Programming Director
 * Nick Elms - Creative Director
 * Nathan Dearsley - Squadron 42 Art Director
 * Phil Meller - Lead Designer
 * Lee Banyard - Audio Director
 * Mike Snowden - VFX Director
 * Alistair Brown - Director of Graphics Engineering
 * John Crewe - Lead Technical Designer
 * Zoe Collier - Associate Producer
 * Ben Parr - Associate Producer
 * Simon Vickers - Lead Level Designer
 * Jens Lind - Lead FPS Programmer
 * Steve Turberfield - Senior Systems Designer
 * Clive Johnson - Lead Network Programmer
 * Robert Johnson - Lead Gameplay Programmer
 * Ricky Jutley - Senior Producer

Cloud Imperium Games Ltd. (Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany)


Formerly known as Foundry 42, Ltd. Frankfurt, Germany is home to Cloud Imperium’s latest internal development studio. Staffed with top CryEngine development experts, Foundry 42 Germany is responsible for developing the pioneering backend technologies that will allow Star Citizen’s persistent universe to shine!

As of 2018-02-16, F42 Frankfurt has a total of 80 staff working on Star Citizen.

Notable members

 * Brian Chambers - Development Director
 * Chris Campbell - Lead Lighting Artist
 * Francesco Roccucci - Lead AI Programmer
 * Hannes Appell - Director of Cinematics
 * Christopher Bolte - Principle Engine Programmer
 * Tobias Wanke - Lead Weapons Artist

Cloud Imperium Games Ltd. (Derby, UK)
Formerly known as Foundry 42, Ltd. An official satellite studio of Foundry 42 Manchester, the Derby office is a small team looking after all aspects of the facial pipeline. From taking delivery of the Face Rigs from 3Lateral, implementing them in-game, taking all the face animation from Cubic Motion and also creating all the Facial animation for the PU that Cubic aren't doing.

As of 2018-02-16, F42 Derby has a total of 15 staff working on Star Citizen.

3Lateral (Novi Sad, Serbia)
3Lateral works with Cloud Imperium Games on character faces in Star Citizen.

Amazon (Seattle, Washington, USA)
Amazon works with Cloud Imperium Games on the development of Amazon Lumberyard since 2015, which is what Star Engine based on. Amazon also provides game servers for Star Citizen on a cloud-based service called Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Faceware Technologies (Los Angeles, California, USA)
Faceware Technologies works with Cloud Imperium Games to develop the Face Over Internet Protocol (FOIP) feature that was built with Faceware’s LiveSDK. A facial motion sensor specifically for Star Citizen is also in the work.

Intel (Santa Clara, California, USA)
Intel works with Cloud Imperium Games to promote the Optane series SSD for desktop users and workstations. They also sponsored hardware to CIG and also their conventions.

Perforce (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA)
Cloud Imperium Games utilize Perforce Helix to support its DevOps.

Turbulent (Montreal, Quebec, Canada)
Turbulent works with Cloud Imperium Games to develop web platforms such as Spectrum and their website. They have been with CIG since 2012. In 2019-12-03, CIG went through a mutual investment with Turbulent. Cloud Imperium UK Ltd. purchased 22,250 shares of Turbulent (25%) directly from their co-founders Marc Beaudet and Benoit Beausejour, and acquired two seats on the Turbulent board. Meanwhile, Turbulent founders Marc Beaudet and Benoit Beauséjourv each acquired 1,170 shares (2,340 combined) in Cloud Imperium UK Ltd.

Notable Members

 * Benoît Beauséjour - CTO and Co-Founder

Other Partners

 * David Ladyman - Editor @ Incan Monkey God Studios (responsible for publications such as Jump Point)
 * Geoff Zanelli - Composer for Squadron 42
 * Jan Urschel - Freelance Concept Artist @ Hendrix Design
 * Pedro Macedo Camacho - Lead Composer for Star Citizen

Advanced Micro Devices (Santa Clara, California, USA)
AMD partnered with CIG to promote their Radeon™ R9 or R7 Series graphics cards with Mustang Omega, as a part of the AMD Never Settle Space Edition promotion.

Airship Images (Blackpool, Lancashire, UK)
Airship Images is specialized in character arts and worked on characters, hairstyles and R&D tasks for CIG in the years 2016/2017.

Atomahawk Design (Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, UK)
Atomahawk design did concept art for Foundry42.

Behaviour Interactive (Montreal, Quebec, Canada)
Behaviour Interactive (BHVR) is responsible for art production for Star Citizen since 2012-12-12.

CGBot (Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico)
CGBot was responsible for the early concept arts and assets production for Star Citizen and Squadron 42.

Confetti SpecialFX (Encinitas, California, USA)
Confetti SpecialFX are a thinktank for advanced graphics technology that worked on a capital ship damage system and nebula effects for Star Citizen between the end of 2013 and end of 2014.

Crytek (Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany)
Crytek was the game engine developer of CryEngine, the base game engine for Star Engine before the switch to Amazon Lumberyard in 2016.In 2017-12, Crytek filed a lawsuit against CIG on breach of the game license agreement (GLA). As of 2018-01, both parties are still engaged in the lawsuit.

IllFonic (Denver, Colorado, USA)
IllFonic was responsible for the initial FPS module and the FPS components of the game.

Massive Black (San Francisco, California, USA)
Massive Black did concept art and ship design for Star Citizen, including the design for the 300i in 2013.

Moon Collider (Edinburgh, Scotland, UK)
Moon Collider was responsible for the Kythera AI development prior to the development of Subsumption. CIG started working with Moon Collider in Spring 2013.

Rmory (Memmingen, Bavaria, Germany)
Rmory was responsible for early weapon concept arts for Star Citizen and Squadron 42.

Streamline Studios (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
Streamline Studios worked on SQ42 art assets, such as the Vanduul ship models in 2014 and 2015, a number of their assets were leaked to the public in 2015 as part of the "Lando Leak".

The Imaginarium (Ealing, London, UK)
The Imaginarium was responsible for the motion capture mainly for Squadron 42, but also for the Persistent Universe.

Wyrmbyte (Louisville, Kentucky, USA)
Wyrmbyte was responsible for early network engineering for the Persistent Universe in 2014.

Virtuos (Shanghai, China)
Virtuos was responsible for the early ship and prop assets in 2014.

voidALPHA (Emeryville, California, USA)
voidALPHA was responsible for environment art till the end of 2015.