Star Citizen's single-player campaign "will be done when it's done"

It looks like the single-player campaign for Star Citizen is still a fair way off, according to developer Cloud Imperium Games.

Squadron 42 – the planned singleplayer campaign part Cloud Imperium's space simulator – apparently has a lot more time in development left.

"We still have a ways to go before we are in beta, but everyone on Squadron 42 is working very hard to deliver something great," explained studio boss Chris Roberts in an AMA over on the Roberts Space Industries website.

“We haven’t been happy with how effectively we’ve been showing progress on Squadron 42, as we felt the previous format didn’t do a good job of all in communicating just how much work is going on. Squadron 42 is a tricky project to communicate on as we really don’t want to give the experience and story away which can make updating on certain content or features challenging."

The blog post was written to celebrate the eight birthday of the game, which was originally unveiled to the world back on 10th October 2012.

The AMA blog was originally intended to celebrate the upcoming game, but many backers of the project instead asked Roberts about the status of the title, which remains inaccessible to players in any form.

“Squadron 42 will be done when it is done, and will not be released just to make a date but instead once all the tech and content is finished, polished and it plays great," Roberts explained later. "I am not willing to compromise making a game I believe in with all my heart and soul.

"Even though everyone (including me) wants Squadron 42 sooner than later, it would be doing a huge disservice to everyone working really hard on the project, and all of you that are looking forward to it to deliver something that isn’t great.”

Squadron 42 was initially set for release in 2016, before it was delayed with a tentative 2017 release target. The game currently goes without a release date.

"We still have a ways to go before we are in beta, but everyone on Squadron 42 is working very hard to deliver something great" Roberts wrote.