In 2025, Star Citizen’s development focused on adding multiplayer content and improving performance and stability, but progress has been modest, with ongoing bugs, lack of permanent rewards, and stalled optimization limiting player engagement. Overall, the reviewer rates the game’s progress as average, suggesting it will take several more years for Star Citizen to become truly playable and fulfilling.
In 2025, Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) aimed to focus Star Citizen’s development on playability, emphasizing performance, stability, and content. However, instead of pushing major new features, the focus has been on enriching the multiplayer experience with more content, particularly related to FPS combat zones like Hathor and Stormbreaker. While these additions provide new activities, the reviewer expresses a lack of motivation to engage deeply due to bugs and, importantly, the absence of permanent, account-bound rewards that incentivize regular play. This lack of lasting rewards diminishes the game’s appeal for players seeking tangible progress and meaningful goals.
Regarding content, the reviewer acknowledges that CIG is making progress in filling out the universe with various events and missions, which is commendable given the scale of the project. However, the gameplay remains heavily combat-focused, especially on PvP, which may not appeal to all players. The upcoming patches suggest a potential broadening of gameplay styles, but the overall day-to-day experience still feels lacking in purpose and engagement for many long-term players. The reviewer longs for more substantial features like base building, player-driven economy, and longer-term goals that would make logging in daily more compelling.
Performance improvements have been a critical focus for 2025, as Star Citizen is notoriously CPU-bound. Early patches in the year showed promising gains in frame rates and optimization, but recent updates have stalled or even regressed in performance. Testing on high-end hardware revealed that while some progress was made initially, the momentum has slowed, likely due to the pressure of pushing out content and events. Consequently, the reviewer rates the performance improvements modestly, emphasizing that lower-end systems still struggle significantly and that more consistent optimization is needed.
Stability has seen incremental improvements, with some events running smoother than previous problematic ones. Nonetheless, crashes and bugs remain an issue, and opinions on stability vary widely among players depending on their hardware and the content they engage with. The reviewer notes that CIG’s rapid patch releases, often driven by the need to support events and ship sales, may compromise the overall stability improvements. While there is hope that stability will continue to improve, the current state still leaves room for significant enhancement.
Overall, the reviewer rates Star Citizen’s progress in 2025 as a middling 2.5 out of 5. While content additions are positive and some performance gains were made early in the year, the lack of permanent rewards, ongoing stability issues, and stalled optimization dampen enthusiasm. The reviewer suggests that it will likely take multiple years for Star Citizen to reach a truly playable and recommendable state, especially in anticipation of Squadron 42’s release. For now, priorities seem divided, with commercial pressures sometimes taking precedence over core gameplay improvements.