16 Million and counting!

Hot on the heels of Chris Roberts’ livestream reveal of the pre-alpha Hangar module (archived on Twitch over here) Star Citizen has passed the $16 million dollar mark for funding!

That's a lot of donuts!
That’s a lot of donuts!

The “stretch goal” for $16 million unlocks the following goodies for Star Citizen backers:

  • Arena mode: The next generation of Wing Commander’s TrainSim allows pilots to test out their combat skills against friends or strangers in a simulation. Gain valuable combat experience without the downside of losing your ship in the game universe! Place bets on competitions across the galaxy.
  • Every pledger who backs before $16 million will receive a laser pistol. Keep your ship safe from boarders with a pistol by your side.

The Hangar module (a very, very, very pre-alpha hands on with the game) will be available for backers to download and play with on Thursday (the 29th).  Keep in mind, it will be very buggy (and no, I’m not referring to the space buggy that will be in the hangars).  According to Chris Roberts’ this is even earlier then he’s ever shown a build to a publisher – or even released it to QA under normal circumstances.

My guess is, that post hangar release, we’ll easily hit the 17 million goal which will unlock:

  • Every pledger who backs before $17 million will receive a ship upgrade package containing an engine modifier.
  • Star Citizen will feature an additional flyable ship class, the battlecruiser.

So far Star Citizen continues along the path of being the largest crowdfunded game ever (at least, that I’ve ever heard of).  At this point, Chris Roberts has said he’s not seeking any publisher funding, and is assuming we’ll hit the ‘fully funded’ goal strictly off crowd funding – based on progress so far, it looks like he’s right.

Can it be Thursday yet? I wanna play with that Hangar Module!