《Squadron 42》跳票至2027年Q2发售并开放Steam愿望单

Published Oct 10, 2026, 12:50 PM EDT

Linda Güster is a Contributor at DualShockers and a German, UK-based gaming journalist specializing in video games, esports, industry analysis, features, lists, reviews, interviews, and news. She has been writing professionally since 2020 and began covering video games and esports in 2025, turning a lifelong passion into her professional focus.

Before joining DualShockers, Linda worked as content lead for Esports Insider DACH and The Escapist Magazine Germany. She previously worked in software engineering and digital media, giving her a strong technical background and the ability to explain complex systems clearly. Across her career, she has written thousands of news pieces and covered gaming culture, esports, technology, and broader industry developments.

Squadron 42 can now be wishlisted on Steam. For most games, that’s a footnote in a press release. For a game that has been in development since 2014, it’s the closest thing to a commitment its audience has had in years.

Cloud Imperium Games paired the Steam page with a new cinematic trailer and a full cast reveal, all pointing towards a planned release in Q2 2027. The studio is clearly ready to start selling this game to people beyond its existing backers. Whether those people are ready to believe it is another matter.

Wing Commander Grew Up and Joined the Navy

Squadron 42 is the single-player, story-driven counterpart to Star Citizen, set in the same universe and built on the same in-house StarEngine technology. It’s also a spiritual successor to Wing Commander, the ’90s series that made CIG founder Chris Roberts’ name. If you’ve ever wanted a big-budget space opera where you’re a small part of a very large navy, this is that pitch.

The year is 2945, and the United Empire of Earth is on the brink of collapse, pressed by outlaws on one side and hostile aliens on the other. You enlist as a rookie in the UEE Navy and are stationed aboard a massive capital ship. From there, you work your way up through the ranks alongside a crew you’re meant to build relationships with.

Mark Hamill Is Back in the Cockpit, and He Brought Friends

The new trailer is labelled cinematic, but there’s a fair amount of gameplay in it. Space combat is the obvious headline, joined by first-person shooting, stealth sections, and some platforming and puzzle solving. There are also glimpses of ship customization, off-duty activities, a hacking minigame and narrative choices.

CIG describes the structure as a mix of action, exploration and interactive cinematic sequences. The studio also says the performances are woven directly into gameplay rather than kept to cutscenes. Given who it has hired, that matters quite a bit.

The cast list reads like someone’s dream convention line-up. Mark Hamill, Gary Oldman, Gillian Anderson, Henry Cavill, Ben Mendelsohn, Andy Serkis and Mark Strong are all in it. So are John Rhys-Davies, Liam Cunningham, Jonathan Bailey and Damson Idris, amongst plenty of others.

For a game that has been in development since 2014, it’s the closest thing to a commitment its audience has had in years.

The player character is voiced by either Ian Duncan or Alix Wilton Regan, depending on your choice. Regan is a familiar voice if you’ve played Mass Effect 3 or Dragon Age: Inquisition, and she’s also the new Lara Croft in the upcoming Tomb Raider games. Everything is backed by full performance capture.

It’s worth remembering that Wing Commander did this first, with Hamill in the cockpit back when full-motion video was the height of ambition. Squadron 42 is that same idea with three decades of technology behind it.

Even a 12-Year Project Won’t Launch Next to GTA 6

The original plan, announced at CitizenCon 2024, was to ship in 2026. In August, CIG pushed that back to Q2 2027, and Roberts was unusually candid about why. He said he had no intention of launching into “the attention buzz saw of GTA 6”.

His reasoning was that GTA 6 isn’t coming to PC this November, but most outlets and content creators will be covering little else. That’s a fair read of the release calendar, and CIG is far from the only studio to have made the same call. It’s also true that this particular game has moved its date before.

The delay landed shortly after a Star Citizen developer livestream that went badly wrong. Players had complained about bugs in a new update, so CIG set out to demonstrate the intended experience live, and ran into the same problems on stream. The timing did the announcement no favours.

Star Citizen passed $1 billion in funding in May and has raised a further $50 million since. That milestone arrived shortly after a $5,000 virtual ship went on sale that couldn’t be flown in the game at the time. The project has been called a scam by its critics and one of the most compelling space sims around by its fans, often in the same comment thread.

Squadron 42 is the part of this project that can actually be finished. It has a beginning, a middle and an end, which is not something anyone can say about Star Citizen yet. A proper release would be the first time CIG hands the wider public a complete game. Star Citizen itself still has no release window.