Star Citizen studio is hiring devs with console experience for Squadron 42

Star Citizen is a game that feels, at times, difficult to approach. The colossal space MMO is vast and filled with players who in many cases have been invested since the first Kickstarter campaign more than a decade ago. Indeed, even the playable game has now been in early access for seven and a half years, and that’s a lot to catch up on. Squadron 42 is designed as the more approachable counterpart, offering a cinematic campaign that boasts a list of names including Gary Oldman, Gillian Anderson, and Mark Hamill. It’s currently penciled in for a 2026 launch, but new job listings have thrown up a fresh wrinkle.

Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games is currently hiring for multiple roles in cinematic animation. The job listings (for its studios in Manchester and Frankfurt) invite you to join “a team of animators and cinematic designers dedicated to bringing to life the performances of some of the best actors in the industry and tying them into the Squadron 42 narrative.” It notes that applicants will be responsible for developing scenes with branching options, reiterating the single-player game‘s focus on a “deep and emotional narrative.”

Along with all the standard requirements you’d expect on such a listing, the posts (seen below, and spotted by ResetEra user PSES) state that Cloud Imperium Games expects those applying for the role to have “professional experience in game animation development, ideally on current/next-gen consoles.”

It’s important to stress, of course, that this could simply be a general requirement to narrow candidates down to those who have worked on modern games. If, however, CIG was looking to broaden its reach to a wider audience, Squadron 42 is the part of Star Citizen you could most conceivably bring to other platforms.

The spin-off space game currently has no more specific launch date than a statement at Citizencon 2025 from CEO Chris Roberts that, “Both the team and I are confident in giving you this game in 2026.” We can only speculate whether a potential console version would have any impact on the PC release window, or if it would arrive further down the line. Either way, at least it’s a clear sign that development work on Squadron 42 continues apace.

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