•Star Citizen’s single-player campaign, Squadron 42, has returned with a new trailer showcasing its cast and interstellar warfare. In development for 12 years, the mode blends space dogfighting with first-person action, set during an era when hostile alien forces have pushed humanity to the brink of defeat. Players take on the role of a rising star in the United Empire of Earth Navy, tasked with pushing back the invaders.
The trailer offers what appears to be the best look yet at the campaign and its extensive cast of actors. Alongside Mark Hamill and Gary Oldman, the rest of the cast includes Gillian Anderson, Ben Mendelsohn, Henry Cavill, Andy Serkis, John Rhys-Davies, and Rhona Mitra. For the player characters, Ian Duncan plays the male protagonist, while Alix Wilton Regan portrays the female lead.
Sviluppo is led by Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts at Cloud Imperium Giochi. The trailer mixes cinematics with gameplay, showing on-foot sections, life aboard the capital ship where players will be stationed, minigames, and space combat.
No firm release date has been set for the campaign; instead, a Q2 2027 window is listed. Players can wishlist it now on the CIG website and Steam. As of 2023, CIG described the standalone campaign as feature-complete, with the team working on “dialing in” gameplay to make it feel as “immersive as possible.”
Squadron 42 has been developing since Star Citizen was first announced. The mode seemed close to release earlier this year before being delayed to 2027, a move Roberts attributed to avoiding being overshadowed by GTA 6.
“Much like the rest of the industry there is no way I want to launch my spiritual successor to Wing Commander, a game that has had 12 years of blood, sweat and tears invested into it, launching into the attention buzz saw of GTA 6,” Roberts wrote in a blog post earlier this year. “While GTA 6 isn’t launching on PC this November, pretty much all outlets and most content creators will be all over it, not leaving a lot of room for other coverage.”
The gameplay shown off was littered with bugs and glitches, along with palpable tension between developers as they attempted to salvage the broadcast.
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