Squadron 42 Delayed to 2027 as Chris Roberts Blames GTA 6

Cloud Imperium Games CEO Chris Roberts has pushed Squadron 42 — the single-player spinoff to Star Citizen — back to Q2 2027, citing GTA 6 as the reason. The studio had publicly committed to a 2026 launch as recently as late last year.

In a blog post, Roberts explained that launching in Q4 2026 as originally planned would mean going head-to-head with GTA 6's release window. "There is no way I want to launch my spiritual successor to Wing Commander, a game that has had twelve years of blood, sweat and tears invested into it, launching into the attention buzz saw of GTA 6," he wrote. He acknowledged that while GTA 6 isn't coming to PC in November, outlets and content creators will be focused almost entirely on Rockstar's game, leaving little room for anything else. CIG plans to hold Squadron 42 previews with content creators and early backers in October, using that window to announce a concrete release date — with the full announcement coming "shortly" after. Q2 2027 puts the game somewhere in spring of that year, assuming no further slippage.

Squadron 42 has been in development since 2014, making it over a decade in the making. The game carries an enormous star-studded cast — Gary Oldman, Mark Hamill, Henry Cavill, Andy Serkis, Ben Mendelsohn, and Mark Strong among them — and Roberts has previously described it as likely the highest-budget game in development outside of GTA 6 itself. Star Citizen, the broader persistent-universe project it spun off from, crossed $1 billion in crowdfunding earlier this year. Roberts has said he wants Squadron 42's launch to be as big a cultural moment as GTA 6, which makes the decision to step aside for Rockstar both pragmatic and a little telling about where the industry's attention currently sits.

The delay lands at a rough moment for CIG. A recent Star Citizen developer livestream meant to demonstrate a new update in its best light instead descended into visible bugs, passive-aggressive exchanges between developers on stream, and widespread community concern about the project's overall direction. Star Citizen itself still has no release window. Squadron 42 slipping again is unlikely to quiet the skeptics — but Roberts is betting a spring 2027 launch, clear of Rockstar's shadow, gives the game a better shot at the spotlight it needs.