In last month’s development update for Star Citizen, Cloud Imperium talked a bit about their new Frankfurt operation and today they have officially launched their new Frankfurt development studio.
The new studio will be managed by Foundry 42, their UK studio, and will be home to “top engineers, artists and designers in Europe” who have experience working with the CryEngine technology, the engine that drives the game.
“These are some of the top game developers in this part of the world,” said CIG’s co-founder and creative director, Chris Roberts. “We are extremely pleased to have them on our team and working with CIG in all aspects of creating Star Citizen. Their experience in working on CryEngine will pay huge dividends for us in the very near future. Some of their contributions are already showing up in in our single player game, Squadron 42, and our first person shooter elements.”
There are currently 21 people on the Frankfurt team and they expect that to ramp up to 50 by the end of this year.
The use of the CryEngine has caused some debate as to whether it’s up to the task for Star Citizen. Primarily an engine used for FPS games, Cloud Imperium has found it challenging to create a full space simulator with the engine and they are in the continual process of trying to overcome these challenges. As the scope of the game has expanded immensely since the initial crowdfunding pitch, there has been concerns that the Star Citizen project has become over-ambitious despite having raised $84 million.
With the FPS module development having stalled, backers will be hoping that having a crack team of engineers with CryEngine experience will bring quicker results and modules such as the already released Arena Commander can be improved.
Even though there was a setback with the FPS module Star Marine, development continues on the shooter and another update was posted at the weekend which outlines their plan of action.
Published: Jul 6, 2015 01:16 pm