Star Citizen’s Arena Commander “almost there,” may launch Tuesday

Followers of Star Citizen are waiting, hangers moist with anticipation, for the release of the Arena Commander dogfighting mode. It was delayed from a proposed 30 May release date last week, and the latest word from Roberts Space Industries is that dogfighting is “almost there.”

Mr. Roberts there, looking a bit sleepy.

In a short update post on the official Star Citizen site, the team explain that a meeting will be held tomorrow (Tuesday) morning to decide whether Arena Commander is ready for release. Here’s the full text.

“We’re almost there! A weekend of hard testing revealed several blockers in the current Release Candidate. The team has worked to resolve these today, and believe we have a good build now. Our internal QA group will be testing it overnight tonight, with our next “go/no-go” meeting scheduled for early tomorrow morning. The good news is that we’re closer than ever, and our efforts over the weekend had the team resolving issues on the fly as they were found by QA.

We will update you tomorrow morning (US time) on the results of the go/no-go meeting.”

That’s not a definite release statement, but it suggests that Star Citizen fans will be dogfighting amongst the stars sooner rather than later. Tuesday night could be a late one for space sim enthusiasts with deep pockets.

Update: The latest on this is that the “go/no go” meeting has been pushed to later in the day. Looks like more waiting is in store.

Update 2: As of 9.35pm Pacific there is no new information on the Roberts Space Industries site. Doesn’t seem like Arena Commander is going to make it on anybody’s Tuesday.

Update 3: My classic reverse-jinx has paid off. The latest word is that a release of Arena Commander is imminent. Version 0.8 is being uploaded to server partners now.

In addition to that news, there was a new “10 for the Chairman” episode released today. To answer a question you probably have: no, Chris Roberts didn’t talk about the Arena Commander release. But he did discuss matters like hanger sharing. You can watch that video, below.