Squadron 42 Steam Release Confirmed With New Trailer

Mark Hamill & Henry Cavill’s Squadron 42 Reveals New Trailer & Steam Release Plans

Cloud Imperium Games’ Squadron 42 opens Steam wishlisting with a new trailer and ensemble poster ahead of its planned Q2 2027 release.

Published Oct 10, 2026, 10:59 AM EDT

Rob Keyes manages content planning and processes, business development, social media, strategic partnerships, branding and PR for Screen Rant and consults for CBR, Collider, and MovieWeb. You may know also him from various television and radio appearances covering the superhero beat, co-hosting the Screen Rant Underground and Total Geekall podcasts - and currently, PODCAST X - or founding and building Game Rant.

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Squadron 42 is officially coming to Steam. Cloud Imperium Games has opened wishlisting for its long-awaited single-player Star Citizen space adventure from legendary game designer Chris Roberts ahead of its planned Q2 2027 release. Squadron 42 was originally intended to release in 2016.

The announcement arrives alongside a brand-new Squadron 42 trailer, key art, and poster featuring the game's Hollywood cast, led by Mark Hamill, Henry Cavill, Gary Oldman, Gillian Anderson, and Ben Mendelsohn. I wrote about the actors joining Squadron 42 11 years ago.

First announced in 2012, Squadron 42 has spent nearly 14 years in development and was originally a co-op campaign attached to Star Ctizen before being split off into its own product. Its arrival on Steam is notable since it gives PC players another way to purchase the game, including those who haven't participated in Star Citizen's crowdfunding history. Until now, Star Citizen and its playable modules have only been accessible from Roberts Space Industries launcher.

Squadron 42's New Trailer & Poster Showcase Its Star-Studded Cast

Alongside Hamill, Cavill, Oldman, Anderson, and Mendelsohn, Squadron 42's campaign features Andy Serkis, John Rhys-Davies, Jonathan Bailey, Mark Strong, Damson Idris, Liam Cunningham, Jane Perry, and Alix Wilton Regan. The Squadron 42 cast was announced 11 years ago (minus one day, exactly).

Cloud Imperium Games used full performance capture for its ensemble, announcing 13 years ago they'd build their own motion capture studio if their crowdfunding efforts hit $10 million raised, which at the time would represent half of Star Citizen's announced budget. At the time of htis writing, Star Citizen's crowfunding earnings sit at 1.05 billion dollars. The actors' performances are incorporated directly into gameplay rather than being limited to cinematic sequences like the iconicc FMV featured in Chris Robert's Wing Commander series.

Set in the year 2945, Squadron 42's story follows a rookie recruit in the United Empire of Earth Navy as humanity faces threats from outlaws and hostile alien forces. Players are stationed aboard a massive capital ship, where they'll serve alongside its crew, develop relationships, and participate in a growing interstellar conflict. The gameplay is entirely first-person, including when outside of the cockpit where you can walk around and participate in FPS action too.

Unlike Star Citizen, which focuses on a persistent multiplayer universe, Squadron 42 is a standalone campaign combining space combat, first-person action, stealth, and exploration with a character-driven story.

The game is powered by Cloud Imperium Games' proprietary StarEngine technology, allowing players to move between piloting spacecraft, exploring detailed environments, and interacting with crew members without traditional transitions between gameplay and cinematics.

Cloud Imperium Games declared Squadron 42 feature complete in October 2023. In December 2025, Roberts confirmed that every chapter was playable from beginning to end internally, with the campaign expected to offer more than 40 hours of gameplay. The team was continuing to work on optimization, bug fixes, and polish ahead of release.

What Squadron 42's Steam Release Means For Existing Backers Like Myself

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The Steam announcement raises some questions, particularly for players who backed Squadron 42 years before a Steam release was confirmed. Will existing owners receive Steam keys or another way to access that version? Will Steam players need a separate launcher or Cloud Imperium Games account? The announcement doesn't address those details, nor does it confirm PC system requirements or Steam Deck compatibility. I've sent these questions in ahead of today's announcement and didn't hear back in time for publication.

As an original Star Citizen backer, from before the project came to Kickstarter for a stint, I still have the little backer ID card from the early days of the project. I've followed its development ever since, covering it for ScreenRant and GameRant, another publication in the Valnet network that I created in 2009.

I've checked in periodically over the years with Star Citizen, sometimes testing ships and mechanics and usally seeing the game bug out or crash, but Squadron 42 has always been the part of the project I've most wanted to play. I grew up loving Chris Roberts' Wing Commander games, and the promise of another cinematic, single-player space adventure from him was a big part of what drew me to the project in the first place. If it works, I'm excited to see what comes next, assuming it's not another decade or two for more content.

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