Henry Cavill Endorses the World’s Most Expensive Game — Every Milestone It’s Already Smashed

Star Citizen just bulldozed past $875,602,817 in crowdfunding. That is not a typo. Thirteen years in, Cloud Imperium Games has turned a space sim into gaming’s priciest slow-burn gamble, and yes, Henry Cavill is in the mix. Whether you see this as epic vision or the glossiest never-ending prototype probably depends on how many ships you’ve bought.

How the money snowballed

It started in October 2012 with a modest Kickstarter ask of $500,000. That target vanished in hours, and the flood never really stopped. The formal stretch-goal era ended way back in 2014, but the cash kept climbing. Here’s the big beats:

• Oct 2012: Kickstarter closes at $2.1M with roughly 34,000 backers
• Nov 2012: $6.2M, early stretch goals unlocked
• Dec 2012: $10M, funding tied to beefed-up AI and universe simulation
• 2015: $100M, nine figures crossed
• 2018: $200M, Squadron 42 shown at CitizenCon
• 2020: $300M, big pandemic-era surge
• 2022: $500M, ten-year anniversary milestone
• Nov 2023: $3.5M raised in 24 hours, single-day record
• May 2024: $700M, momentum continues despite delays
• Apr 2025: $800M and 5.24M+ registered citizen accounts
• Oct 2025: $875M+, post-CitizenCon bump

If you remember the stretch-goal days, those stopped at $65 million in 2014. The last one added deep ship modularity so you could reconfigure a hull inside and out for different roles. After that, CIG shifted to ongoing development while selling ships and upgrades, which is where the headaches started. Starter packs hover around $45, but top-tier capital ships can clear $3,000. The May 2025 Flight Blade situation — where upgrade components launched as real-money exclusives — blew up fast and got reversed just as quickly after players pushed back. The business model debate is still very much alive.

Cavill, Hamill, Oldman, Anderson... in a prequel to a game that still isn’t out

Here’s the fun wrinkle: Squadron 42 is a single-player prequel to the multiplayer universe that has yet to officially launch. So the spinoff might land before the main thing. The cast is stacked to the ceiling. Henry Cavill plays Commander Ryan Enright, Mark Hamill is Lt. Commander Steve "Old Man" Colton, Gary Oldman is Admiral Ernst Bishop, Gillian Anderson captains as Rachel MacLaren, Mark Strong is a squadron commander, and John Rhys-Davies pops up in a supporting role.

CIG didn’t have to go hunting for Cavill — his team reached out. The guy is famously PC-core (he really did almost miss a Man of Steel moment because of a World of Warcraft raid). His performance capture work was done years ago, but the previously floated 2026 release window for Squadron 42 now looks wobbly. CIG’s Jared Huckaby flat-out said in September:

"We don’t know if we’re going to make it."

CitizenCon teases vs. ship dates

The latest CitizenCon Direct dropped on October 11, 2025. Highlights: the Nyx system is slated for November 2025, and a new Genesis planet tech is planned to overhaul terrain generation in 2026. Great demos, strong promises — the usual question remains: do those turn into actual, widely available builds on anything resembling a schedule?

Either way, $875.6 million later, Star Citizen has mastered the art of raising money. Finishing the thing is the part everyone’s still waiting on. Is this unprecedented crowdfunding triumph or a very expensive warning label for scope creep? Would you throw cash at a project with a timeline this bendy? Drop your take in the comments.