Do you think they’re gearing up for a release? Do you think they’re gearing up for another 2 years+ of game development and delays? I personally think it’s kind of weird that they’re able to stay silent for so long. Surely they must be working on something.
Personally, I feel like they are making progress towards finishing it. This is clear from the tiny bits they do show us from time to time where they show off huge chunks of never before seen content. I’ve heard all the tinfoil hat conspiracies about SQ42 being delisted from the RSI store page which means that either a price increase and/or imminent release date will be announced and I’m super skeptical about that.
However, I don’t think the outlook is super rosy for a sudden and unexpected release. CR has said that he intends for SQ42 to be the gateway into the PU, that your “service” in the UEE military via the singleplayer campaign can be one way to guarantee citizenship and that you get dumped out of the campaign and into the persistent universe as kind of a post-game sandbox. The thing is, in order for this to be seamless and work the way they want, essentially having SQ42 teach players the basics of how to fly small fighters and prep them for the MMORPG aspect of the simulated universe, you are going to have to fully finish both games in terms of core mechanics. I don’t see how SQ42 could be released when the flight model is not finalized, let alone the physicalized armor system. Ships and other content can continue to be added independent of SQ42, but you can’t just change the way atmospheric flight or control surfaces or g-tolerance or even balance the individual performance characteristics of some of the core ships and still have a singleplayer campaign that is balanced and fun.
When those systems start getting prioritized for release on the PU, I would say that a release date for SQ42 would be forthcoming once they worked out the kinks on those systems. I’d say probably a year out from announcement minimum. The game would probably have a short internal beta followed by release of at least one chapter/scenario/episode whatever you want to call it. Maybe not the full game on release, which is my theory on why they removed SQ42 from the store - they intend to split it up into smaller chunks and release it. Those who bought the full game get everything as it gets released, late comers will have to pay separately for each.
I really do hope we hear something about it soon. A release date would be nice, or at least having them tell us how close they are. “We’re 60% of the way there” would put things into perspective, but I can see why they might want to avoid saying something like “We’re 95% done” because then people will clamor for the game to just be released already.