Cloud Imperium bringing more Star Citizen development internal

When IllFonic confirmed a round of layoffs yesterday, the silver lining was that the cuts were happening partly because its work on the Star Citizen FPS module was nearing completion. However, a Cloud Imperium Games statement on the matter suggests there's still a little more work to be done; it just won't involve IllFonic.

"In the early days of Star Citizen's development, we were still quite small and needed the assistance from several external studios to help us build Star Citizen's core functionality in a timely fashion," a Cloud Imperium representative told GamesIndustry.biz. "IllFonic, who had previous CryEngine experience, was one of the developers that we tapped, specifically for help on the FPS game systems and mechanics that would be inside Star Citizen.

"As Cloud Imperium Games and Foundry 42 in Europe have continued to grow, we've begun pulling in some of those external projects to reside with our internal teams. This has always been our plan and Global Production Head Erin Roberts is currently undergoing a review of all our projects in order to streamline Star Citizen so the project is more dependent on our internal development teams.

"In the case of IllFonic and Star Marine, this 'winding down' and 'transitioning' has been in progress as IllFonic's part in FPS is coming to a close. And with the increased responsibilities for Star Marine development now sitting in Frankfurt and Manchester, we can assure our backers that they'll be able to play Star Marine in the very near future."

Star Citizen began as a Kickstarter project seeking $500,000 in funding nearly three years ago. It raised $2.1 million through the site, but has continued its crowdfunding efforts since, to date raising more than $87 million from some 963,000 backers. Cloud Imperium has also expanded greatly, with offices in Los Angeles, Austin, Manchester, and Frankfurt.