Ostensibly, this week’s livestream from Star Citizen was primarily focused on another round of tech talk about the game’s backend tech, server meshing, and so forth. Instead what most are focusing on is a statement made by content director Jared Huckaby about Squadron 42, which has thrown some portions of the playerbase into a fury.
“There will be no Squadron 42 presence at CitizenCon Direct this year,” Huckaby said at one point during the broadcast. “That team is heads down. We drew a line in the sand when we said 2026. I don’t know that we’re gonna make it; I just know that we’re going to do every single thing possible to make it, and part of that is not taking time for the distraction of CitizenCon.”
Readers will remember that the 2026 release window was projected twice by CIG: once during last year’s CitizenCon presentation and again by Chris Roberts in an interview with French news site La Presse.
Unfortunately, what most followers of the project are latching on to was the concern about SQ42 not making its projected release, which has understandably and unsurprisingly caused most fans to brace for yet another delay from the studio. “It’s gonna be two years, guys. Like it always is,” reads one pointed reply, which as regular followers of SC know references the often repeated timing window for launch by the studio.
This has brought Huckaby forth to Reddit and the forums to try and contextualize and defend his statement. “I said that I personally cannot tell you what the future holds, because quite honestly, that’s the responsible answer for me to give with the way that video games are made. Not our video games, ALL video games,” he writes. “Please don’t mistake my pragmatism for any commentary on the status of the game. I just try very, very hard to speak as deliberately and plainly as I can without embellishment or hyperbole. I meant what I said in the most literal manner possible.”
