Star Citizen reaches $100 million in crowd-funding as Alpha 2.0 is released

Cloud Imperium Games' (CIG) ambitious science fiction game Star Citizen has surpassed $100m (£66m) in funding, raised entirely from its huge and growing fan base. To celebrate this milestone, the developer has released Alpha 2.0 - the first "true slice" of its game.

Star Citizen is a multi-faceted space-set game set in a massively multiplayer persistent universe which features a single player first person shooter campaign (with co-op support) called Squadron 42, as well as space combat and traditional first person shooter multiplayer.

"With Alpha 2.0, we introduce a wide swath of features, including large world maps, multi-crew ships, seamless first person combat, missions and much more. In short: this is the biggest update to Star Citizen yet," says CIG on its website.

Numerous new locations, ships and weapons are included in the update – which will continue to aid CIG in honing the game ahead of a potential release next year.

The game's persistent universe will support a dynamic economy which is propped up by a number of player-led organisations and reacts to player actions. The current player base of around one million has, according to Cloud Imperium Games – created around 32,000 individual organisations. The largest one has 11,000 members.

"They [have] been there from the beginning when we launched Star Citizen's funding campaign three years ago," said Chris Roberts, founder of Cloud Imperium. "They've helped create the most passionate and loyal community in our industry."

Stretch goals unlocking new features at various funding milestones stopped at the $65m mark, but money has continued to pour in.

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