The single player campaign is now "feature complete."

CitizenCon 2023 has come and gone and with it comes word that Cloud Imperium Games is now in the home stretch on Squadron 42 development. Besides showing off new game engine demos and new Star Citizen ships you can throw money at, the studio showed off the first look at their single player campaign for the first time in eight years.

Cloud Imperium Games says that "Squadron 42 is now feature-complete!" They continue to say, "As we move into the polishing phase, we're fully focused on optimizing and fine-tuning all aspects of the gameplay experience to deliver an unprecedented cinematic adventure. To celebrate this milestone, we have gathered our core development leadership from around the globe to share what this means."

The announcement from Cloud Imperium Games comes alongside a new 26-minute long video. The video includes brief remarks from Cloud Imperium founder Chris Roberts plus plenty of gameplay sequences. This is our first look at Squadron 42's story, gameplay, and star-filled cast of characters since 2015. Some of those big name stars being people like Mark Hamill, Gillian Anderson, Henry Cavill, Gary Oldman, John Rhys-Davies, and more

What Cloud Imperium showed off looked quite impressive from a visual and technical standpoint. We were treated to looks at various physics-based environmental puzzles, combat scenarios both on foot and in space, various story cutscenes, and a look at some of the impressive environmental interactions at work.

The combat is billed as "tactical FPS combat and stealth" by Squadron 42's senior game director Richard Tyrer.

At the end of the long gameplay demonstration, Roberts says that they don't yet have a release date to share.

Squadron 42 was, at one point, had a highly ambitious 2016 release window. As is the case with most things related to Star Citizen, that release window came and went. Squadron 42 was again delayed in 2020. While what was shown off this weekend certainly looks good, it's perhaps a good idea to keep your hopes and expectations in check because it may still be a very long time before Squadron 42 is out.

As far as funding is concerned, Cloud Imperium Games has now pulled in almost $617 million (USD) in funding for Star Citizen and Squadron 42. This is almost $300 million more than what they were at in December 2020 when Squadron 42 was last delayed. Yesterday alone, Cloud Imperium Games saw an additional $1.6 million of funding come in from backers.