Cloud Imperium Games recently announced that the two most ambitious games, "Star Citizen" and its single-player campaign mode "Squadron 42," will utilize Amazon's Lumberyard engine. "Star Citizen" has been in development for almost 4 years and this sudden transition could mean certainty for its players, once the game launches.
Announced in October 2012, the successor to the "Wing Commander" franchise and the single largest crowdfunding project which raised more than $139 million began by using the CryEngine from the German video game company Crytek. According to Polygon, the team at Roberts Space Industries announced in a press release that they have been working with Amazon for over a year.
"... We have been looking for a technology leader to partner with for the long term future of Star Citizen and Squadron 42.... Lumberyard provides groundbreaking technology features for online games. Because we share a common technical vision, it has been a very smooth and easy transition to Lumberyard," said Chris Roberts, creative lead and studio head for "Star Citizen."
This announcement is timely as Crytek has been in financial hot waters recently. But as Venture Beat reports, Amazon's Lumberyard engine is a derivative of Crytek's CryEngine. A $50 million payment was made by Amazon to license the game engine, allowing the company to modify and be able to build Lumberyard.
'Star Citizen' switches to Amazon's game engine https://t.co/5QWVCwixGq #engadget #tomgadget
— Tom Taylor (@tom_taylor) December 25, 2016
Further, Cloud Imperium Games has more of a safety net in case Crytek has to stop its own development, per Engadget. Since "Star Citizen" is an online space game, Cloud Imperium Games could benefit highly from the new engine's feature inclusive of deep integration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) online infrastructure and Twitch live streaming.
"Squadron 42," the single-player campaign mode of "Star Citizen," was delayed out of 2016, according to GameSpot. Meanwhile, "Star Citizen" FPS, "Star Marine", is available in beta form. The full game, however, has no confirmed official launch date after almost 4 years since the crowdfunding campaign began.
