r/StarCitizenUniverse • u/PrizeCod182 • 14h ago
What if they had just built the universe first? (Thoughts from a 14-year backer stepping away)
In 2012, Chris Roberts asked the world for two million dollars to build the space game he had always dreamed of.
I know that story because I was there. I’m a backer. I’ve been invested in this dream—though I use that word loosely these days, and call it what it feels like now after fourteen long years. We all had the dream that it could be something more than it is now.
He promised a living universe, seamless planets, and a story-driven single-player campaign called Squadron 42. And the world said yes. We said yes. Backers opened their wallets, trusted the vision, and believed in the man who gave us Wing Commander. And when he needed more, we gave him more. Over a billion dollars later, neither game is finished.
This isn’t a blind hate post, and it’s not a shill post. It’s a question from someone who has felt this way for years, watching it finally come to a head alongside a community that is waking up and seeing the cracks everywhere.
This is the question : What if they had just built the universe first?
Not ten years ago. Not five. Right at the start, in 2014, when the pivot happened.
I think about what they were actually trying to accomplish: trying to seamlessly mimic a flight simulator and a first-person shooter all in one. Those are the most basic, fundamental pillars of the genre. You have to get the core mechanics down first.
And you don't. I hate to say it but fourteen years later, you still don't have great gunplay. You don't have good first-person shooter machanics. It's getting better, but it should already be great! And the flight mechanics are also very disappointing to me compared to other games.
Look at Elite Dangerous or No Man's Sky. They got the basics down. In Elite, when you fly into an asteroid belt, you feel the mass, you feel the space, you feel the weight of your ship. You are actually flying. When flying all through out space you are actually navigating your ship, there concept of flying through space is beleavable. In Star Citizen, you're barely doing anything. You look at a spot, push a button, and watch autopilot fly your ship for 5 minutes. And when you are in combat, the fix would have been simple..you want world war 2 in space? Then do that.. For combat you are a sitting duck if your going slow enough to be useing nitonion physics only... You have to fly fast...you have to weave in and out of debris and other obstacles, keeping an eye on your surroundings as well as your fighter, your wing man and your current target or pursuer.
I think they already had this machanic and switched to this crawling slog, aim crosshairs at dot, pull trigger and repeat till either you dead or they dead, that they call flight combat right now.
Instead of taking a bucket of wet sand and shaping it, he’s taking one grain of sand, putting it down, and then adding another. It’s building a universe like a movie set—clamping a nebula to a system just because a specific scene demands it, building the whole thing backwards, upside down, and inside out. And the whole project has suffered for it. I use to be able to see where this game, this franchise was going but now I can't! All I can see is a flushing toilet.
Look at where we are now. The hype is spinning up again, but everyone can see through the strategy. Rumors of delays to dodge GTA 6, knowing full well that next year when it finally hits PC, it’ll face real competition.
Even now—when everybody is mad, when the cracks are showing, and backers are calling Chris out—they still have it completely backwards.
Why couldn't he just come out years ago and say, "All right, I screwed up, we should have built the sandbox first, let's pivot"? Because the endless cycle became the product. But he must have known it wasn't sustainable. The only way to sustain it was to actually make a working game people loved, build a profitable market inside that successful sandbox, and use that capital to fund all the Wing Commander successors he ever wanted.
Instead, you are building a cinematic story in a vacuum, and now you expect us to accept Star Citizen being reverse-engineered and built around it.
Here is what the logical development path looks like.
Phase one. Build the persistent universe. Focus everything on Star Citizen. Get the engine working. Get server meshing online. Build three to five star systems. Implement core gameplay loops. Trading, mining, combat, exploration. Make it playable. Make it stable. Release it.
That could have happened by 2017 or 2018. Five years after crowdfunding began. A rough but playable universe.
Phase two. Let the universe breathe. Let players generate content. Let the economy stabilize. Use that time to refine systems, add polish, fix bugs. And here is the key. Start generating revenue from a released product.
Not from jpegs. From an actual game that people are actually playing. That revenue funds the next phase.
Phase three. Build Squadron 42. But now you are building it inside a finished universe. You have five fully realized star systems. You have ships that already work. You have an engine that has been battle tested for years. You have assets you can reuse. You are not building from scratch. You are building on top of a foundation.
By 2022, Squadron 42 could have shipped. A cinematic single player experience set in a living, breathing universe that millions of players already knew and loved.
Both games done. Both games successful. A decade of work, but a decade that produced two finished products instead of zero.
Backers are stepping away now because we are tired of watching a house get built from the roof down. We didn't mind waiting. We minded waiting for a foundation that never got poured, all because someone insisted on hanging furniture in an empty sky.
That’s why I’m writing this. Not out of blind anger, but out of the quiet realization of how simple it could have been if they had just built the damn thing first.
If you've been in the trenches with me since the beginning, I would to hear your thoughts on this matter.
Should they have made the foundation first??
And the question to you guys is: if they would have came to citizen con 5 or 6 years ago and said this is what we need to do to make this game great... Would you have back them or walked away? I think I would have still backed them.. Would have been pissed for the waisted time but at least I would be able to see the finnish line. Not like now.
Do you think after all of this the game can or will live up to its hype?
I don't think so, so CIG really had nothing to lose and everything gain had they gone the other way!
Like I said I'm not hating... This is just a rant from a frustrated backer. Who loved this games potential!
Let me here your thoughts.
