Squadron 42 — the single-player campaign that’s been in development nearly as long as Star Citizen itself — finally has a Steam page. Cloud Imperium Games opened Steam wishlisting for the game on October 10 alongside a surprise new trailer, The Oath, with the studio planning a Q2 2027 release for its long-awaited space epic.
A Decade Later, an End in Sight
Squadron 42 has been in development for over a decade and has slipped its release date repeatedly — most recently to Q2 2027, a delay studio boss Chris Roberts argued was necessary because the game would otherwise be drowned out by GTA 6. The Steam page is the strongest sign yet that the wait is genuinely nearing its end, and Cloud Imperium has the war chest to see it through: the studio’s crowdfunded multiplayer game, Star Citizen, topped $1 billion in crowdfunding in May. A glossy trailer, a store page and a firm window — after a decade, that’s what progress looks like.
What You’ll Actually Play
Squadron 42 is set in the year 2945, with the United Empire of Earth on the brink of collapse. You enlist as a rookie in the UEE Navy, stationed aboard a capital ship where you live and work alongside your crew and work your way up the ranks of a galactic war. Cloud Imperium says it mixes space combat with ground operations, stealth sections and “quieter moments” with the people around you, with decisions to make alongside your crewmates — a standalone story set in the Star Citizen universe, running on the studio’s in-house StarEngine. And the cast is staggering: Mark Hamill, Gary Oldman, Gillian Anderson, Ben Mendelsohn, Henry Cavill, Andy Serkis, John Rhys-Davies, Jonathan Bailey, Mark Strong, Alix Wilton Regan, Damson Idris, Liam Cunningham and Jane Perry, all captured through full performance capture.
It’s a fitting week for Roberts, whose original claim to fame is suddenly in the news again too: EA announced a Wing Commander 3 remaster built from newly found FMV source tapes less than a day after the Squadron 42 trailer dropped. The creator’s past and future, moving at last within 24 hours of each other.