Krugeri, Krugeri This is Archangel-actual. We've finished our patrol with no sight of hostiles,
how copy? All copy Archangel. Stand by for update. Copy that. Archangel-six, come in. Go for six. I'm getting a faint contact on bearing two-eight-seven. You picking that up? Yeah, got it. Scanning now. We're clear, commercial vessel out of Vega III. Reminded them that civilian traffic is restricted under lockdown. Copy that. Archangel, Archangel. This is Krugeri. Come back, Krugeri. Redirect to sector seven-bravo-echo for immediate tasking. Copy that. On our way. Scimitar, Scimitar, reposition to heading zero-three-eight. Copy that. Adjusting heading now. Reaper Squadron, Reaper Squadron, thanks for joining us. What's your sitrep? In position and holding now. Understood. Stand by for further orders. I know I just wrote you, but a couple hours ago,
proximity sensors on the other side of the jump got twigged. Word is it might be that Clan we've been battling with. Guess that last fight didn't scare them off quite like we all hoped it would. Honestly, we've been out here so long,
I don't know what to pull for anymore. I just wanted to let you know. I'll write as soon as I can. Stay safe. Your loving son. Never gets old, does it? Sir. At ease. I used to do the same thing when I was first coming up. Post up to the flight deck whenever I could to watch the launches. Have you seen the F8s up close? No, sir. The thing's a beast. Nimble too. Twelve maneuvering thrusters and three mains?
It sure sounds like it. Sir. PA: Captain MacLaren to the bridge. Captain MacLaren to the bridge. I saw you applied to the Flight Academy again. Yes, sir. Keep your head up. Took me a couple times before I got in. Thank you, sir. Welcome to Cloud Imperium Games Manchester Studio. I’m Chris Roberts and I’m pleased to announce we have just passed the major milestone. Squadron 42 is now feature complete and has entered its polish phase. To celebrate this milestone,
we’ve gathered some of our core leadership together to share what this means. As Chris says we’ve moved into the polish phase of Squadron 42. Which means extra emphasis on ensuring things feels fun. This means focusing on the small and large elements of the game. Such as dialing in combat encounters,
but also looking at the feel of how you control your character or vehicle and
making sure it’s as immersive as possible. We’ve paid extra attention
to how your character reacts when in their ship – so that
you feel like an actual pilot – whether that’s firing your weapons, taking hits,
or punching the afterburners to get to cover. Ship AI has also seen huge improvements
with closer engagement distances and more varied behaviors and
with our new precision targeting mode – the action has never been as close. With the aim now on polish we’ve organised the project into self-sufficient strike teams. So we can focus on individual areas to deliver the best experience. Get out of sight, the Cutlass is gonna spot you. This allows us to bring all disciplines together
with a unified vision of enhancing the gameplay by seamlessly blending it with polished visuals, final
cinematic performances, and our ever-improving technology. They didn't see the boat, kid. You're good to keep going. We’re also dialling in gameplay features such
as the ship flight model for both atmosphere and space which covers Master Modes, control
surfaces and our gold standard HUD & MFDs. Our interaction system for both the world and your
character have also seen additional improvements allowing us to hone and craft environmental puzzles unique to each location while allowing us to tell the story of the world around you. The military multi-tool is an essential piece of equipment for every pilot, that integrates all attachments into a single handheld device and allows us to create really interesting challenges
including physics-based puzzles using our updated rope tech. Unidentified vessels, this is the UEE Navy. Power down your ships and stand down for processing. The Coil's ours! Our scanning, targeting and marker system has also seen an overhaul allowing us to highlight only the essential
information that you need such as key objectives, mission targets and high-level scan information
while keeping your overall view as clean as possible. Tactical FPS combat and stealth which has
seen a suite of improvements from improved looting, weapon feel & balance, realistic scopes, and smoother locomotion. Alongside our new and improved FPS
radar and scanner that provides you an overview of the battlefield but at the
cost of ramping up your own emissions. We’ve also seen the introduction of our Maelstrom powered destructible environment. Which adds a layer of dynamism to the experience alongside our improved A.I. - that can now have hundreds
of combinations of traits that allow us to create unique and
challenging combat encounters that really push your tactical awareness and skill. We play and review the builds
regularly and call out action points in each level from start to finish on
where we need to improve the gameplay. This is an incredibly rewarding stage of development for me and the team, as the ultimate vision of the game is realized,
allowing us to craft an experience that we can be really proud of. One specific area that I am excited to dial in is the feeling
of the player interacting with the world around them... -Patching you in. -as it’s a core component of Squadron and really grounds the world that you inhabit. We’ve made sure that any interaction in the environment
is physically represented by a character animation to keep you in the moment and fully immerse
you in the experience that we’ve created. Ultimately this is the final phase
of gameplay iteration before we fully transition into optimisation
and stability on the road to release. Agent Trejo. This is Colton, come back. Always trips me out to see terraforming setups like this. Web tried to explain how atmosphere processors work. Really shows how far we've come. Where the hell is she? With the transition of Squadron to polish phase,
we've had the opportunity to find additional moments within the existing narrative
to add subtle interactions where appropriate. It's been tremendously exciting to play
through these areas and find places to augment the mood, support gameplay, and
further embellish our story and characters. So, yeah man, I-I-I can't believe it,
they said I got to wait another two years before I can reapply. So, umm, so that's why I figured I'd get
a job trying, trying in security, because that's umm, you know, I can get some
hours flying in the cockpit and whatnot. Can't hurt, right? Exactly. We've also been capturing pickups for our Lead
Female Player Character, as well as wild lines for our various enemies that you all will encounter
throughout the game on both foot and in your cockpit. These consist of a range of responses
and reactions, that you as the player can trigger, which has been the culmination
of efforts by the Gameplay and AI teams. This means that you're
gonna have to tangle with some very smart and reactive bad
guys to complete your mission. At the heart of this immersive adventure,
you'll find cutting-edge cinematic storytelling, thoughtfully crafted to fully immerse you into your story. We fight today! So in forty years from now when
you're surrounded by everything and everyone you hold dear, and they ask
what did you do in the Battle of Vega… ..you can look them in the eye and say: "I held the line." Men and women of the 2nd Fleet. I am proud to stand with you today. Good luck. Bishop out. Nice speech. Any word from the Recon team? Not yet. Well, let's get into position. Throughout the polish phase,
our team is taking every opportunity to push things to the next level. Tell me you're expecting company. This is not good. The Cine team is focused on finalizing edit-lock on all of
our big action and all of our smaller character sequences. Yeah, I could've pulled this off of the Galactapedia. Yeah, probably.
But I think their solar mass calculations are wrong though. Well, this is ridiculous. How so? We are now able to adjust our shot composition to final cameras, thanks to recently crafted space vistas
and level art being content complete now. It'd be nice to know how much of a shitstorm we're flying into. More like a hellstorm, blue.
One you ain't gonna fly out of. Shut up! Now I haven't seen another ship that wasn't trying to kill me in days. Let alone a hauler. Let alone a X'ian. So you can imagine my surprise... Detailed lighting passes can be
done on hero sequences, so we can show our cast and convey their
emotions in the best light possible. And we are making sure our Cinematics are triggering as fluid as we can craft them; so they form a coherent concerto with the rest of the player's narrative experience. Mr Wexler, this is Lt.Comm. Colton. Oh. Commander, hey! Julian Wexler, I'm the field manager of this little operation. Welcome aboard the Archon.
What brings the Navy to this little corner of the universe? We've got you flying with Lt.Comm. Colton. He's one of our best. As others will share, this is the most rewarding chapter of development; which allows us to truly experience the visceral,
and oftentimes emotional moments that our narrative provides. How did you handle it after Vega? I'm... not sure I handled anything. It helps to remember that stuff like this is supposed to hurt. I've never been good at dealing with problems I can't fix. This is one that you don't have to do alone. That's good to know. For the animation teams, polish
phase means refining the social aspects of Squadron 42 that
occur between the various missions, and getting the behaviours implemented across all of its chapters. Here we’re
dialling in a hangar to make it as immersive and
believable an experience as possible. For example, we are launching off a space carrier,
but we still ground the feel in real-world actions: Re-fueling, repairing and inspecting,
and making sure that your next flight mission is a success. This means we're looking out for pops,
hiccups or awkward transitions, ensuring that everything flows and looks like all the
great mocap performances we’ve captured. Let's ready some extra icepacks out of storage. Whenever gunners are on full rotation you can
always count on at least one of them getting hurt. We also have you covered in
everyday life – the medical staff work diligently for their patients,
whether they are players or crew. We really want you to feel part of an authentic crew
- an important part of the UEE Navy in an enormous universe of people going about their everyday lives. Let's go ahead and clear for takeoff. Ground crew, prep for takeoff. Copy that! Hangar, ready for launch. Takeoff approved, Baron 2. Ready and hold on as you’re
launched off the deck of the carrier. Baron 2, you're clear for launch. Have a safe flight, Baron 2. We want you to not only decide
how you play the game, but to feel as if the people you interact
with are in that world with you. I'd have never thought a shotgun could be so pretty. But damn, these R97's are sleek as hell. Like a lot of other weapons in Gemini's arsenal, there's a higher rate of fire than most guns its type. We’re working to support a feel of authenticity through world traversals – running, jumping and climbing, interactions with objects and the environment, solid weapon gameplay and enemy reactions, as well as combat realities - such as weapon malfunctions. Or in close encounters of the more... Lethal kind. Oh…that’s gonna hurt in the morning... As we continue to focus on the quality
experience, we’ve been working closely with our art teams, and it’s been exciting to see
their environments come to life alongside us. While Animation and Design have been populating the locations, polish phase for my teams means making huge advancements
in the quality of our characters and environments. We’ve established our standard with recognizable characters
like Mark Hamill, Gillian Anderson and Gary Oldman. We’re now applying this to the rest of the cast and identifying
any remaining tech requirements that need to be closed down. The story of Squadron 42 takes you through a variety
of diverse locations of varying scales and styles! We've shared glimpses of several environments before, and
there's still plenty out there waiting for you to discover. One of the main challenges the art team has had to face during the development of Squadron 42 is ensuring the visuals are complimentary to the Narrative of the script. The mood and feeling of a space is just as important to us as it
is making sure we hit the visual quality that CIG has become known for. No good. We can't hack it from this side. Graves - we've got a locked door. Can you give us access? No, I'm afraid that's a negative Steve. I would have to add you to our system to give you override permissions. And... there's a lot involved in that. OK. We'll figure something out. Everything you see during the campaign has been heavily inspired
by the classics of 70s and 80s sci-fi but with a modern twist. We want everything you see to feel like it has a soul, its own personality, and tells a history of long before you've arrived. Crafting interesting flight spaces
and their connecting tissue has been one of the more unique challenges
we’ve needed to overcome for Squadron. Developing our VBD tech to blend seamlessly
between tighter traversal spaces and into wider space vistas and planets has
proved incredibly difficult but rewarding, ensuring that Squadron flows seamlessly from one chapter to the next without interruption. Creating a diverse array of locations is essential to us; and our environments need to work from a variety of scales: We need to pay close attention to detail: Whether we’re working in a dirty engineering vent; or navigating the debris of a dying star, wondering what may be around
that next corner or even who may live there, how would they have survived,
what state of mind may they be in. We’ve worked closely with our Social teams in delivering a cohesive social experience when you’re taking some downtime from our refined flight and FPS missions, or even missions of the more eerie kind. We’ll be introducing new space stations on a massive scale, all brought together and designed to be as tangible as possible, we’ve thought about their function,
their age and tried to ensure there is a progression in artistic style with each
station as you progress through the game. As you can see today, the teams
are working incredibly hard ramping up the detail and quality to match the
breadth of our vision for Squadron 42. Now, I know you are all asking: "When can I play it?!" - When can I play it?! - When we have the locked release date you will be first to know. Now we’re in polishing phase on Squadron 42.
You’ll start to see a lot more things coming to Star Citizen as well as
overall progress on the Persistent Universe. The polish phase can take some time. We have come this far, and we want to make sure that Squadron 42
delivers of the promise of being this generation’s Wing Commander. Now even though there's only a few of us in this
video I'd like to extend a big thank you to all our staff around the globe who have been putting their
heart and soul into bringing Squadron 42 to life. And I would like to thank everyone in the community for your patience and your support. To paraphrase Admiral Bishop, when people ask, what did you do in the development of Squadron 42? You can look them in the eye and say, I held the line! I am proud to stand with you. Thank you for making this game with us. I HELD THE LINE
