Chris Roberts hopesSquadron 42will be “almost as big” asGTA VInext year

The single-player Star Citizen spin-off Squadron 42 is slated to finally be in players' hands in 2026, 11 full years after its initial 2015 release target. And after all that time, Cloud Imperium Games CEO Chris Roberts says he's hopeful that the title will be received similarly to another 2026 release that happens to be possibly the most anticipated video game of all time: Grand Theft Auto VI.

A recent report from French Canadian outlet La Presse (translated) suggests that Squadron 42's launch is being timed so that it "won't be overshadowed" by the planned May launch of Grand Theft Auto VI. "We're hoping it'll be almost as big an event," Roberts said in comparing the two upcoming releases in an interview with the French paper. "Other than GTA VI, it's probably the biggest-budget AAA game [of the year]."

That's a pretty bold claim, considering Squadron 42's very public and tumultuous path to a purported "feature complete" status in 2023. But it seems at least somewhat reasonable when you consider that GTA VI's development budget of nearly $1 billion lines up closely with $859 million in crowdfunding currently being reported for Star Citizen as a whole.

Still, comparing the launch of Squadron 42 to that of Grand Theft Auto VI might be the most grandiose bit of expectation-setting yet from a studio known for setting grand expectations. Yes, Roberts Space Industries can boast a million people who play the Star Citizen alpha monthly and 25 million who have tried it at least once (as reported in La Presse). But Grand Theft Auto V has sold 215 million copies so far, with the GTA Online mode helping to regularly attract 20 to 30 million returning players each month. The relative levels of anticipation suggested by these numbers are not in the same galaxy, to put it mildly.