Crowdfunded space simulator Star Citizen recently reached a new milestone – becoming the first player to seamlessly hop between two star systems on different servers – and now the person responsible, Cloud Imperium Games CEO Chris Roberts, indicates that version 1.0 may finally be here visible .

It’s been over a decade since Roberts first showed me the Star Citizen prototype. The space game has already raised over $670 million and has become two separate projects: a single-player successor to Wing Commander called Squadron 42 and an ongoing MMO game in the Star Citizen universe.

Squadron 42, which stars big-name actors including Gillian Anderson, Mark Hamill and Gary Oldman, was deemed a “ready feature” late last year, and now Roberts says the features are making their way into the persistent universe. at an accelerated pace.” Meanwhile, the recent technological milestone that resulted in a player named “MrTrash” (that’s his name, of course) becoming the first to travel between star systems through a wormhole is, according to the CEO, a significant step towards the release of version 1.0 of the MMO.

“After many years of hard work to achieve a goal that many thought was impossible, we are on the brink of delivering one of the final pieces of technology that will enable a connected, shared universe that thousands of people can experience simultaneously,” Roberts wrote in his latest message to supporters.

The technology they call “server meshing” allows players to seamlessly travel between locations hosted on different servers (it’s more complicated, but that’s the point). According to Roberts, the recent test also set a new record for the number of concurrent players on the Star Citizen server with 350.

More details on server merging can be found in the Q&A, but the big takeaway is that Roberts thinks Star Citizen 1.0 is close enough to a release to start seriously talking about it again. Now that Squadron 42 is ready, the development team has been reorganized and is heading “to the Star Citizen finish line,” he said, although crossing that line won’t mean the end of development of the game, of course.

“Star Citizen 1.0 is what we consider a set of features and content that represents the ‘commercial’ version,” Roberts wrote. “This means the game is friendly to new players, stable and polished with enough gameplay and content to consistently engage players. In other words, this is no longer alpha or early access.”

Cloud Imperium chief technology officer Benoit Beausejour says the company is “full steam ahead” to launch server meshing technology in Star Citizen Alpha 4.0, which will “mark a new beginning” for the game’s architecture. Senior game director Rich Tyrer added that as they work toward the 1.0 goal, players should expect “major updates every quarter with many changes to systems that haven’t been changed in a long time, such as economics, insurance, etc.”, as well as “all suite of quality of life improvements” and “all-new features and content.”

Roberts says he moved from Los Angeles to Austin as part of the 1.0 initiative to get closer to the time zones of Manchester, Frankfurt and Montreal, where Star Citizen development is focused. As a result, Cloud Imperium’s Los Angeles office shrank, and developers working there were asked to move to other offices, mainly Manchester. Roberts notes one departure from the company. Regular in-universe performance director Todd Papy, who lived in the UK but returned to the United States, was fired: “…after a long search, I have determined that we cannot afford to fill this role away from the main team in Manchester for most of the year,” Roberts wrote.

“I will miss the sunny skies and beaches of Los Angeles, but Star Citizen and Squadron 42 take priority,” the CEO concluded. “The journey is longer and more difficult than I anticipated 11.5 years ago, but the ultimate destination is much more exciting and rewarding. Never, even in my dreams, would I have expected that I would have the opportunity to build something on the scale and ambition of Star Citizen and for that reason I feel incredibly blessed with all of your support and am determined to finish strong.”

Squadron 42, which was originally scheduled for release in 2014 and then 2016, has no release date, as does Star Citizen 1.0, although the current alpha is playable by purchasing the starter pack. According to Roberts, more than 1.1 million players logged in last year. You can read the full post on the state and future of Star Citizen here.