It seems that neither the players nor the developers of Star Citizen, the game that has raised over a billion dollars in crowdfunding since it was announced back in 2012, when dinosaurs like democracy still roamed the earth, are having a good time right now. Apparently, the game’s Siege of Orison mission has been serially delayed due to technical issues, and its current version on the Star Citizen public test server is also buggy. So, perhaps hoping to restore player morale, on August 5 developers Cloud Imperium Games dedicated their regular livestream series, Star Citizen Live, to playing the mission on internal servers to show what the mission is supposed to look like. “What we decided to do today is show you the intended design,” chief content officer Jared Huckaby said at the start of the livestream. The goal was to show players “how it’s supposed to work.” Only… it didn’t work. Not only was the mission riddled with bugs, but it seemed like the developers weren’t having a good time with each other. At the end of the broadcast, the room falls silent as the group realizes that they have been cleaned up after an hour and a half of playing the mission. Elliot, one of the developers, then tells his teammate Olli, another developer, to kill himself, inspiring a series of awkward laughs before Elliot finally added “in the game” to his comment. Oh. But the worst moment, the most “wither and die,” happened at the end. Before the developer cohort can reappear to attempt the mission again, Huckaby informs the group that they have arrived on time. He then approaches Olli, who appears to be the developer behind this live streaming project, and promptly murders him with a “It’s your show, finish.” Olli looks around in panic and confusion before trying to salvage his casual jab by saying he had fun, with an expression and tone that tells you he’s not telling the truth. The developers say a few words and the live broadcast ends. Wow. Star Citizen was announced in 2012, and all these years later, it still doesn’t have an official release and can only be played in Early Access. The game has made over a billion dollars at this point, funded in part by incredibly expensive starter packs and ships costing thousands of dollars. There are several videos on YouTube and threads on the Star Citizen subreddit talking about what an absolute disaster the livestream was. A Reddit thread easily broke down the errors that members of the development team experienced during the stream. Meanwhile, another thread expressed gratitude that the stream happened at all. “You accidentally gave the community the most honest look at Star Citizen in months.”
