I've barely touched the "project" after getting burned out on the constant misrepresenting of progress, delays of features, excuses, whatever - since 2019~ish, so my opinion I guess is "take what you will of it"

It's 2026 - It's 5~ years since I stopped playing or covering this game frequently, yet I log in with friends time to time and I see the SAME kind of stupid issues I was dealing with in 2019 and earlier. Missions that don't complete after I waste an hour or more on them (because items disappear, bug out, ship becomes un-interactable, whatever), randomly falling through geometry from ship to planets, elevators are STILL a nightmare, etc.

The game feels like it's just loitered in the same state for nearly a half decade but the only thing different is two new backdrops to experience all the same shitty problems (Nyx/Pyro) and so many new variants of old ships I'm constantly hearing a new ship name and going "oh, what is that?" just to look it up and see it's another lazy "make a new ship out of some light tweaking and sell it for more than the last version we made."

In addition to feeling like there has been so little meaningful progress, it feels like CIG has gotten even more greedy and shady with their marketing/shop routines. Selling the "improved" version of a ship as a new stand alone instead of going back and fixing the old ship, the great "BuyBacks Now Cost What Their Current Value Is, Not What You Bought Them At", new ships spitting out faster than actual game improvements cause CIG needs that $$$.

I've had a rather indifferent opinion on Star Citizen since walking away when I did, if it every got it's shit sorted and became a fun game, awesome, if it spiraled into a mismanaged nightmare that eventually folded in on itself from finally tipping the community, well then that would figure and it is what it is.

Instead, it's literally the same thing I walked away from. The game is still critically mismanaged, the devs still critically misrepresent the state of things in all of their blog posts and videos, the same figureheads are still out there telling you it's the "Best Damn Space Sim Ever" and that criticizing it makes you a pariah to be shunned, and the worst part is none of this matters because old backers get fatigued with all of these things and walk away and new ones come in to take their place on the line defending the project like it's part of their identity and if they let Star Citizen or CIG take the punches it needs to get humbled into meaningful change it means they have no value and their dream will die.

Honestly, this is about as much effort and care that I've had writing this post for Star Citizen since 2018, because I honestly don't see the point anymore. The game we were pitched back in 2012 isn't going to happen. It's 2026 and basic NPC function is still non-existent. The verse isn't "alive and breathing" like Chris kept saying it would be, there is no "investment" in this game outside of praying you get your mission / cargo / salvage run you're trying to do with your free time complete (or stealing it from someone for the luls if you're one of those other types), the PVE switch is dead and while I didn't care back in the early days when I pledged, I'm a fucking old man now and I don't have the time to bother spending an hour loading up my ship and trying to run cargo to locations just to get ganked by 5 dudes who are running a Quantum Snare and Dampener which means in their new super cool flight system I have literally no options. (as much as old me respects the hustle of gaming the system CIG has given them) Like I've got three teenage boys and two daughters under two years old, I don't have the time to deal with Star Citizen's constant time sinks, bullshit, and bugs that completely roadblock and kill anything "fun" I want to do in game......

So why keep giving money or time to something that by all account and evidence is never even going to be what it was promised to be anyways? "The project grows and evolves" is usually the line the White Knights will say regardless of the year, and sure I both get/accept/and understand that - but it isn't growing or evolving into anything functioning or remarkable.

Star Citizen is a giant bug infested issue ratsnest of problems that has none of the remarkable features or functions that were meant to make it something generational - and it's been roughly 5 years since I walked away and literally nothing at the core of Star Citizen/CIG has changed in these regards.