I’m almost in disbelief that it’s 2025 and I’m writing about Star Citizen. This is a game that launched on Kickstarter 13 years ago and went on to become the most crowdfunded video game ever. It’s raised more than $1 billion as of August 2025, yet it’s still stuck in alpha after entering early access back in 2017.
You can buy access to the game for around $40, but you can try the game for free; however, that’s just the start. In what feels like microtransaction hell, you can also buy ships ranging from about $40 to well over $1,000.
Recently, the game has come under fire within Reddit’s Star Citizen community for introducing a new purchasable component called Flight Blades. These parts provide real performance benefits to ships by affecting systems like shields, thrusters, and coolers. While some versions can be earned through gameplay, others require real money, which has sparked heavy criticism from the community.
The flight blades backlash
Flight Blades are parts you can attach to your ships, and they change how your ship flies during space battles. Some make your ship faster but harder to turn, while others slow it down but make it more agile.
If Star Citizen were purely PvE (player vs environment), this wouldn’t matter much. But because it includes PvP (player vs player) combat, players who spend real money on these parts can gain a clear advantage over others.
As if the game still being in alpha wasn’t bad enough, Flight Blades came out of nowhere — and you could only buy them with real money, priced between $10 and $40. Yes, that’s right, you had to buy this item, and there was no way to earn it in-game, which is how gear is usually unlocked.
This sparked backlash almost immediately. Thousands of players flooded Reddit and the official forums with angry comments, accusing Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) of breaking promises and turning the game into a cash grab. Many called it “unacceptable” and “the definition of pay-to-win.”
After the backlash, CIG said it would make Flight Blades earnable in-game, which it did in a patch that landed in June 2025. It claimed the real-money launch was always meant to be temporary, but most players didn’t believe that. To many, it felt like damage control rather than part of the plan.
Star Citizen’s troubled Development history
In 2012, Star Citizen was announced and launched on Kickstarter, initially raising over $2 million. The game was originally planned to be released in 2014, but that never happened, and CIG released small updates to backers from 2013 to 2017. It switched engines in 2016 and launched into early access in 2017, where it still remains in alpha.
The game has now raised a total of $1 billion(via YouTube), fuelled by a bold strategy of underdelivering, overpromising, and asking people to spend more money on a game that might never actually release.
The concept of Star Citizen is an MMO space sim that promises many of the same things No Man’s Sky has delivered, though they are two completely different games. No Man’s Sky is not an MMO, and it has not spent over a decade exploiting players. Instead, it has delivered nine years of free updates and recently broke its all-time peak player count on Steam. I am not saying you should play No Man’s Sky instead, but it is certainly a cheaper and probably more fun option.
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