The Kickstarter-funded space games are in an interesting place at the moment. On the one hand, there's Elite: Dangerous, which is fast approaching its beta . On the other, heavier, bulkier hand, there's Star Citizen. As a crowdfunding campaign, it's unstoppable—nearing $45 million. As a game, it's yet to leave the hanger . That was set to change with the release of a dogfighting module, due to be sent out to backers today. Project director Chris Roberts has instead announced that the current build is too unstable for release and has been delayed. Again .
"Today," writes Roberts, "I sat down with Star Citizen's production leads for a 'go/no-go' meeting. We went around the virtual table, like a ground control team preparing to launch a rocket, and the decision was that we are not able to release Arena Commander tomorrow as there are too many blocking and critical issues outstanding."
Roberts points to a "newly developed DirectX crash" affecting one of the module's single-player modes, among other critical bugs and 'blockers'. "It would be foolish to release an unstable build," writes Roberts, "even if pre-alpha for the sake of meeting an internal deadline. This is the power of the crowdfunding that made Star Citizen possible: a publisher would make us ship tomorrow regardless of the current build quality... but as you are all focused on quality rather than a financial return for shareholders we are able to take a few more days to deliver something that is stable."
Cloud Imperium are yet to announce a new date for the release of Star Citizen's Arena Commander module.
