Erp: Star Citizen Dogfighting Module Delayed Again

All systems were so very nearly go for a Star Citizen dogfighting module launch today. Chris Roberts and co told everyone to mark their calendars. There was a lot to be done before the big day, but not so much that the former Wing Commander commander-in-chief couldn't make all the nice outer space murder birdies fly. Or at least, that's what everybody thought last week. Turns out, however, that the space bugs were a few too numerous to be smashed in such a short period of time, so the dogfighting module has been delayed again. Good news, though: you're going to get daily development updates until the long-awaited combat alpha soars.

Chris Roberts explained why Arena Commander, as it's known, is seeing yet another delay, and what he's going to do as compensation for fans who've already been patiently waiting for quite some time:

"Game developers classify bugs based on their severity: blockers, critical, major, moderate and minor. The most serious of these, blockers, are bugs that completely prevent the game from working and from being in a releasable state. Unfortunately, as of tonight, there are still two blockers and half a dozen critical issues (which we would like to fix before launch). Our biggest issue today is a newly developed DirectX crash which breaks the single player Vanduul Swarm mode every backer will be given access to. It would be foolish to release an unstable build, even if pre-alpha for the sake of meeting an internal deadline."

"In order to keep our backers as informed as possible, I’m asking the production team to provide DAILY updates for the community until Arena Commander V0.8 ships. This will be the raw stuff: lists of bugs and other information to tell you the current health of the build. You will see the same information I do, and you will be able to follow as we resolve each 'blocker' preventing the build’s release."

Apparently Arena Commander is still very close to release, just not close enough to go screaming out of the hangar today. Still though, that's presumably much closer than the first public showcase, which was kind of a mess. The hope, however, is that it will be out very, very soon, and you'll be able to follow along at home until then.

Shame that we'll have to wait a little longer to try out what is perhaps Star Citizen's most make-or-break aspect, but this isn't the rawest deal ever. Keeping everyone in the loop is a good approach. Now here's hoping very, very, very hard that it's all worth the wait.