Star Citizen's first playable module out next week for backers

Star Citizen backers will be able to try out the first playable module next week, Chris Roberts has told Eurogamer.

The module includes a hangar which can be moved about with an avatar, and you can even drive a space buggy in it. A dogfighting module is planned for release by the end of the year and a planetside module is due for release in March 2014.

Star Citizen is now entirely community funded, said Roberts, noting that there are no investors backing up the sim.

"I'm actually not taking money from investors now," he said. "The budget for what we're delivering is about $20 million, and we're almost there - we'll probably be there before the end of the year.

"The nice thing about not taking the investor's money is, as much as they're nice investors, they want a return at some point. If this thing's a big success, they'll say, 'EA and Activision want this for about $100 million and that gives me a certain return on my investment' - but that may not be the best thing for the game. I like the idea that the game gets 100 per cent community funded because all they care about is getting a great game, and all I care about is making a great game."

The CryEngine 3 powered PC titles hasn't been ruled out for next-gen consoles in the future, according to Roberts, as PS4 and Xbox One "are just high-end PCs with custom operating systems."

However, if the game were to land on living room boxes, console manufactures would have to be on board with the game's free content updates which react to "what the players are doing... If the platform holders wanted to do that, then great."