14 DAY TRIAL // Chris Roberts, the game creator behind Star Citizen, believes that his space simulation revival title has the potential to go head-to-head with any other AAA quality title when it launches, during 2014.
He tells GamesIndustry.biz that, “I’m confident now that we’ll be able to compete with any AAA game out there. I can’t do what I did with Freelancer, or what id did with Rage, and take five years to release it. At that point, the moment in time will be gone. But in two years, it will be pretty great.”
He adds, “I have a bit of an advantage in that there are a lot of people who played Wing Commander in the Nineties, and that was one of the reasons they got into making games in the first place. I got the feeling that there were quite a few Wing Commander fans at Crytek, and they were all just excited to help out.”
Initially, Roberts thought about launching a version of Star Citizen on home consoles, but he has since dropped the idea because it takes time and resources that he lacks.
On the PC, the game will benefit from the name recognition associated with Roberts because of Wing Commander and from the recent trend towards niche gaming.
The developer points to how well League of Legends performed for Riot Games and the presence of World Of Tanks from Wargaming as signs that small companies with good ideas can succeed and compete with AAA titles.
At first, Chris Roberts only sought to get funds from fans via his official website in order to complement resources he had also received from backers.
Since then, he has also moved Star Citizen to Kickstarter, where the space sim project has proven to be a hit.
Star Citizen will be launched exclusively on the PC during 2014.