Here's The Roadmap For 'Star Citizen' Update 3.0

The team at Cloud Imperium Games continues to push through the development process for Star Citizen, but at least now fans have an idea of what’s in store for the game's next major update. The studio released a detailed roadmap for the coming months leading up to update 3.0, and there’s still plenty of work to do before it’s released.

The main focus of 3.0 seems to be exploration and trade. When it’s released, it will include new moons within the Crusader system, and they will have outposts that you can travel to with your ship and explore. As you travel, you might also encounter debris and derelict ships, both of which you can also explore.

You’ll also be able to earn money by trading cargo, but it’s not as simple as pressing a few buttons on a screen. The developers are also adding a feature that will have you carry the cargo box by box onto your ship’s cargo hold. Other features in the update include the addition of a mission system, insurance for your ships, and the ability for multiple players to control turrets within a ship.

However, implementing these features is not an easy task. The main roadmap is broken down into nine different sections that include Gameplay, AI, and content within the game’s Persistent Universe. Within each section, there are multiple features that need work. For example, the Persistence Universe content section is made up of new features including derelict ships, moons, and non-playable characters who provide missions. A small team of developers will work with each feature and break it down into even smaller elements so that each person in the group has a small number of tasks. The studio even made a 19-minute video that shows the long and complicated process for creating these different features.

Other than showing more behind-the-scenes content, the video is a general message that says development of a game of this scale takes manpower and time. Developers are working on multiple tasks that feed into a single feature, which then has to work with other elements within the game. Each of these tasks might also have bugs that affect different parts of the game, so developers have to find and eliminate these bugs before moving on to another feature or task.

Even with all the challenges and tasks that are in store for the developers, the studio has a release date in mind for update 3.0: June 29. However, factors such as bugs, the hiring of additional staff, and even the overall polish of these features can lead to a delay (or early release) in terms of the update launch. The studio also released an early plan for updates 3.1.0 and 3.2.0, which seem to be expected by the end of the year. Features in these future updates include new locations in space, fuel, ammo types, and more ships.