The creator reflects on their mixed feelings about Star Citizen in 2025, appreciating the impressive new content and improved stability but feeling disconnected due to ongoing performance issues and the lack of fully functional persistence systems. They express hope for meaningful progress toward a polished 1.0 release at the upcoming CitizenCon, while urging the developers to focus more on long-term gameplay depth rather than ship sales and patch updates.
In this reflective video, the creator discusses mixed feelings about Star Citizen’s progress in 2025 despite a recent poll showing that 54% of players believe it has been a good year for the game. While the in-game content released this year has been impressive, with new locations, ships, and gameplay elements, the creator personally feels flat and disconnected from the experience. They acknowledge that the atmosphere and variety of content are strong, but this alone doesn’t explain their lack of enthusiasm.
The creator highlights improvements in game stability and session times, noting that players are staying online much longer and server reliability has increased significantly compared to previous years. However, performance optimization has not advanced as hoped, with some setbacks despite initial signs of progress. High-end systems can achieve decent performance, but overall, the game’s performance remains a sticking point for the creator.
Ship sales have been a notable success this year, with popular ships like the Idris and Apollo finally available, contributing to record-breaking revenue and a growing player base. Despite these positive indicators, the creator’s personal engagement with the game remains limited. They feel that until the game’s persistence systems are fully functional—meaning player progress and items remain consistent without resets—they won’t be motivated to play regularly beyond checking out new content or participating in special events.
The core issue for the creator is a longing for Star Citizen 1.0, a fully polished and released version of the game with stable gameplay loops, meaningful player interactions, and long-term goals like base building and crafting. They want a game where activities like mining serve clear purposes tied into broader progression systems. While they remain hopeful this vision can still be realized, they feel that recent communications from the developers have focused more on selling ships and patch updates than demonstrating tangible progress toward this 1.0 milestone.
Looking ahead to the upcoming CitizenCon event, the creator expresses cautious optimism that the developers might finally reveal significant advancements toward 1.0, despite the heavy focus on Squadron 42 possibly overshadowing the main game’s development. They invite viewers to share their own feelings about the year and hope the event will provide renewed confidence in Star Citizen’s future. Ultimately, the creator’s mixed emotions reflect a desire for a more cohesive and polished gameplay experience that aligns with the ambitious vision originally promised.