Squadron 42 is Now Fully Playable, Will be Over 40 Hours in Length

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As 2025 nears its close, Cloud Imperium Games, the developer of Star Citizen and Squadron 42, has shared a progress report through a new letter from creator Chris Roberts. In the letter, Roberts highlighted the many updates made to the Star Citizen alpha version this year and announced that all chapters of Squadron 42 are now playable.

Roberts shared that Squadron 42 is a massive game, taking over 40 hours to play. The team is currently focused on final improvements, optimizing performance, and fixing any remaining bugs. Throughout 2025, Cloud Imperium Games continued building on the progress made in 2024, aiming to finish the game’s content and complete essential tasks before entering Beta testing.

According to Roberts, a key to the game’s success is the technology CIG has developed over years. This technology allows players to move effortlessly between on-foot exploration, piloting vehicles with internal movement, and traveling to planets or across star systems—all without any loading screens. This creates a highly immersive experience, blending detailed, close-up interaction with the vastness of space, which Roberts believes will be what sets Squadron 42 apart.

We also put a huge amount of effort into the game’s content – everything from the writing and character animations to the environments, spaceships, lighting, sound, and overall design. I’m really proud of the level of detail we achieved. When combined with how interactive the game is, it all works together to create a truly immersive experience that keeps players engaged.

Regarding Star Citizen, Roberts discussed a new experimental update for the game’s Alpha 4.5 version that now supports VR headsets. He explained this “Christmas Surprise” began as a project created by enthusiastic fans and developers, and quickly gained wider attention within the Star Citizen community.

This new VR mode makes nearly everything in the game physically interactive, meaning players can manipulate objects with their hands no matter which perspective they choose. The developers also point out that this mode highlights all the detailed work they’ve done on the game’s environments, objects, ships, and equipment, as players can now experience everything at its actual size. While still considered an early experiment, the team continues to refine and improve the VR experience.

The studio has plans to enhance the technology already used in Star Citizen and Squadron 42. A key improvement is Server Meshing, which was initially added to Star Citizen earlier this year. This feature allows servers to adjust automatically based on how many players are online and how much load they’re creating. Over the next year, Star Citizen’s alpha version will also receive new in-game content. Meanwhile, Squadron 42 is progressing towards its Beta release, although Cloud Imperium Games hasn’t announced a specific date for that yet.

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2025-12-24 14:41