https://robertsspaceindustries.com/en/citizencon
Cloud Imperium Games wrote:CitizenCon Direct 2955
Coming Your Way This October!
We're thrilled to introduce CitizenCon Direct - a special digital Star Citizen showcase bringing the excitement straight to you. This year's event is shaping up to be a ~2-hour show broadcasting live at 1900 UTC on Saturday, October 11, 2025 on Twitch and YouTube!
Only 2.5 days away! I am throwing a watch party on Discord like last year, and all are welcome! The greatest artistic event of the year, fully narrated by me with help from The Cult usual suspects! If you can't make it, I'll put the stream on YouTube, no worries.
So let me tell you what to expect.
First off, this is a very different CitizenCon from all previous ones, which is why the "Direct" in the name. It's not in-person like the last couple of them, nor is it the 6-8 hours' duration like the digital ones during Covid. So why only 2 hours?
Because their development model changed in the last year. It's no longer so "open" as it used to be. That's why the show "Inside Star Citizen" pretty much died. Since they delivered Object Container Streaming (OCS), Persistent Entity Streaming (PES), Physicalized Cargo, Server Meshing (SM), and Pyro, the bulk of the game's architecture has been realized, and though there are still major pieces remaining to be added (Engineering, Crafting & Base-building above all), they're now at a place where they can start focusing on stability and content. This means that the game is now far more playable than before; they recently said that player engagement is 10x what it used to be a year ago, i.e. a player who would play one hour a week a year ago will play 10 hours a week now. And since people are playing more, they're spending more, which is why revenue is up 40% from last year, which was already a record year.
So they have no longer any reason to show, month by month, what they are working on to be delivered months or years from now. Before they would go months with no updates, so they needed to show some signs to the players that they were getting work done, hence the weekly YouTube shows and monthly progress reports and so on. Now we're getting a new update every month as opposed to every 3 or 4 or 5 months, so we're always seeing progress, and reasons to spend more.
Besides, last year's CitizenCon [ > ] will never be surpassed because it was the year that they finally put all the big pieces together into a single stunning vision. We finally saw working crafting and base-building, we saw space-station-building, territory wars and RTT-level naval battles with commanders using holospheres, as well as multiple new star systems, social features, graphical features, jungle-planets like in Star Wars, crazy weather effects. They really went all-out last year, and now they just have to deliver as it's not possible to get even more ambitious than that. They can add the odd extra system here or there (fishing or whatever) but they can't wow us again to the level that they did last year. So why spent a month and more preparing for an in-person show that will only be anti-climactic? Better to put that effort into delivering their promises.
That said, they still need to put up a big shindig once a year to make some extra noise and wow us, it's just good marketing, hence we're getting a CitizenCon that's only focusing on what they've planned for the next 12 months.
Here's Jared explaining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPaDb5rh0tE&t=2333s
2:51:54 Citizen Direct (Oct 11) announced → smaller, focused event
2:53:30 Expectation setting: no Squadron 42 presence (team heads-down toward 2026)
2:56:05 SC and SQ42 progressing separately; fewer shows this year = devs focus on building
So what ARE they planning for the next 12 months that they'll show off on Saturday? Here are my guesses.
- Nyx is the big item: a new star system, with Vanduul raids being its unique feature, plus a multi-phase event called (or code-named?) TSG to kick it off, and linked to the existing storylines. Since they showed Levski/Delamar last year, my guess is they'll focus on the planets this year: two regular planets and one gas giant. Plus we'll see the settlement style, gangs and so on. If they do show Levski again, they'll show the local missions they've been planning, i.e. contracts you can complete on-foot or in EVA at the landing zone. I am very excited for these. Anything that allows a full zero-to-hero playthrough with no money or ships up-front is exciting to me (I'll use Cult Clones to play like that as I level them up For The Emperor, i.e. myself).
- Accompanying the new event will be the long-awaited data-running profession, with a new large ship for it, the Apollo variant called the Hermes. So they'll spend some time advertising this ship and explaining the profession. A little less time will be spent showing off the existing, smaller data-runners: the Drake Herald and Crusader Mercury Star Runner. Maybe also the Sabre Raven which also does some data but is impossible to get without spending $1,000+ because it was only offered via the purchase of an Intel SSD many years ago. Hopefully they'll re-offer this in partnership with Intel at a reasonable price. Tons of people want one, including me.
The Vanduul Mauler - The Vanduul will also get a major segment: it's a big deal that enemy aliens are finally in the game. And they are coming with a new heavy fighter, the Stinger, and a capital ship, the Mauler (which they teased as "alerum" in some communication). They won't sell the capital and we won't be able to board it, but they'll sell the Stinger, and maybe also the three smaller fighters they've sold before [ > ]: the Blade, Scythe and Glaive. If they sell the Scythe I'll have to find a way to buy it because it's currently impossible to get without spending $5,000 in the secondary market; if they're smart they'll put all of them in a pack that I won't be able to afford :( Also, all Vanduul ships will get their final models, because some of them still have the cartoonish-looking 5-10-year-old models in Arena Commander.
- I am certain that Pioneer [ > ] development paused when Kraken development started about 4-5 months ago [ > ]. I think what happened was that, when they switched focus from features to stability and content, all planned features including base-building were pushed a year back at least, so there was no longer any reason to keep rushing the endgame base-builder that is the Pioneer. So they switched that team to the Kraken, and that's why we haven't heard a word from the Pioneer for half a year. That said, they might show a quick clip of what they've already done on the Pioneer, and then another quick clip on what they've done on the Kraken. But if they focus on one, it will be the Kraken, because it looks like it's coming first.
- My guess is that crafting & base-building will also be shown as arriving at least in T0 implementation late next year. Nothing ground-breaking here, they've shown it all before, but now they'll just give a few more details (maybe the hydroponics modules, or the defense modules, or the extra large modules that they only showed in concept before; plus the working crafting machines).
- And I believe they will show Castra as the next system to arrive, again, late next year, probably in time for next CitCon. I am sure they haven't done much work on it, but they will have at least one new clip from it to show us. Since they showed the landing zone, Sherman, extensively last year, my guess is they'll show a bit of the planets this year.
- Speaking of planets, terraforming has been teased in the latest edition of the in-game news bulletin, and people are expecting a terraformed microTech to be shown off as the first Planet Tech v5 rework, if you don't count the Nyx planets, which will all be v5. And the Castra planets will be v5, so I expect us to feast our eyes, at least briefly, on all these planets.
- I also expect at least one item to come out of left field. Maybe working armor lockers, or Bounty Hunting V2, apartments, who knows maybe even a brand-new thing.
That's all I got for now! If I forgot something, I have a couple days to add it. But I think you'll see I am pretty on the mark with these guesses. I spend a good one-two hours per day researching the game EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR, so I don't think anyone is more informed than me who doesn't work for CIG. I could start my own SC YT show and I'd smoke all those gays with the crappy-ass YT shows. But... I have my own game to make, so prolly won't happen.
Anyway, see you Saturday, I can't wait!
