Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games announced that it’s closing its studio in Santa Monica, Los Angeles.
The move, announced via a newsletter sent to backers, is the culmination of a previously announced shift aiming to relocate the developer’s sizable workforce to its other locations, mostly in Manchester, UK.
According to the developer, this has been done to “make sure developers are right where they need to be for the final stretch, which means moving key staff to be closer to their teams and counterparts in other studios.”
The announcement also mentions that backers who are part of the “Chairman’s Club” (which requires spending over $1,000 in the game) will receive an in-game replica of the RSI constellation artwork displayed above creative director Chris Robert’s desk at the studio, “to celebrate everything the LA studio brought to the project.”
The artwork, which you can see below, can be used to decorate the player’s persistent personal hangar and will be distributed with update alpha 4.1.0 which is currently being tested and should be released on the live servers soon (also including the brand-new Argo ATLS Geo mining mech).
If you’re unfamiliar with Star Citizen, it’s a crowdfunded project directed by Chris Roberts, whom you may know for his work on the beloved Wing Commander series. It’s a multiplayer sandbox space simulator that has been in development for over a decade and in alpha for several years. It’s available exclusively for PC.
The crowdfunding total has recently passed $794 million and it’s currently at $794,645,344. The game also has 5,566,875 registered users, albeit not all of them are paid customers. Many simply create an account to enjoy the occasional free-to-play periods.
A few months ago, Cloud Imperium Games showcased plenty of features and tech coming to Star Citizen, on top of the overall vision for version 1.0, which will be the full release of the game, albeit it doesn’t yet have a date.
A single-player campaign titled Squadron 42 is also being developed, starring an exceptional cast of famous actors including Mark Hamill, Henry Cavill, Gary Oldman, Liam Cunningham, Gillian Anderson, and more. Recently we saw plenty of gameplay and learned that it’ll release in 2026.
Since the project has been in development for over a decade, you can also see how Squadron 42 evolved since its first reveals.
Full disclosure: the author of this article has backed Star Citizen’s crowdfunding campaign.
