Star Citizen’s alpha testing continues, as the massive crowd-funding initiative inches closer to the monumental $1 billion raised milestone.
Star Citizen Gets Closer to $1 Billion in Crowdfunding
Star Citizen began its crowdfunding journey all the way back in 2012. In the thirteen years since its record-breaking beginnings, the team at Roberts Space Industries have managed to crowdfund $928,446,689 and counting.
That staggering total comes from a combined 6,193,570+ contributors at the moment and is separate from any additional private funding the developers have acquired, as well.
It may be surprising that a crowdfunding effort is still raising money more than a decade after it originally launched, but it really does seem possible that the project could surpass the $1 billion raised milestone in the coming year if it continues to trend in the same direction it has been.
What Are Star Citizen Backers Getting for Their Money?
The most expensive Star Citizen pledge packages are built around very rare ships. The least expensive ships in the official Pledge Store come in at just $15, but the other end of the spectrum goes quite high.
The most expensive ship, the Javelin, currently sells for $3,000. Although the average player will obviously never drop that kind of money on a ship, there are enough whales making these types of purchases to continue to drive up the numbers on the Star Citizen crowd funding.
It’s worth noting that the leap in funding in 2025 wasn’t only due to ship sales, but also was helped by some technical breakthroughs on the project that helped make the alpha far more enjoyable. This year saw the implementation of some improvements to the game’s server meshing systems which improved server capacity and removed the need for certain transition load screens.
When Does Star Citizen Release?
When talking about the Star Citizen release, there are two related products to consider. First, there’s the Star Citizen MMO, which is the open multi-player experience. There is also a narrative, single-player campaign that is in development. That part of the package is called Squadron 42.
Star Citizen backers are able to play the game in an alpha state right now. The current version, Alpha 4.5, updated just a few weeks ago in mid-December. In its current state, the game allows players to engage in bounty hunting, mining, large-scale industrial hauling, medical rescue, and ship salvage. Star Citizen 1.0, which will take the MMO from alpha to commercial product, is a bit further off. The 1.0 release is expected in late 2027 or 2028, but there is no confirmed window at this point.
The team is still working on completion of the Squadron 42 single-player campaign. In late 2025, Chris Roberts confirmed the single-player campaign is feature complete. The team is now working on polishing and optimizing this game mode. This single-player experience is aiming for a 2026 release.
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