Star Citizen
Ranked 5 of 9 space simulation games by recommenders
Recommended for its ambitious, immersive space vision and good performance on Linux and FPS. Main caveat: years of delays, bugs and an unfinished beta state.
Recommended for its ambitious, immersive space vision and good performance on Linux and FPS. Main caveat: years of delays, bugs and an unfinished beta state.
31 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 20
- approval share
- 35%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Ambitious, immersive vision people want
“the only game that seems to hit the mark of what im actually itching for is star citizen”
Comment from 9 Sep 2026 in “No Man's Sky Cosmos” “from what I hear, it offers a uniquely immersive experience”
Comment from 25 May 2026 in “Star Citizen game has reached $1B in funding” “It's certainly unparalleled.”
Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Moongate – Ultima Online server emulator in .NET 10 with Lua scripting” Runs well on Linux
“Start citizen runs fine and gives excellent FPS NOW”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too” “runs really well on Linux”
Comment from 2 Jan 2026 in “Linux is good now; to feel like you actually own your PC, put Linux on it”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Long delays, still in beta
“they are forever in a beta state with no clear ship date in the future for their two games”
Comment from 7 Jul 2026 in “Microsoft Fire IdTech Team at Id Software” “By the time they do a final release we'll have people playing it on the Moon and Mars.”
Comment from 25 May 2026 in “Star Citizen game has reached $1B in funding” “was supposed to release 12 years ago. And they are still collecting money.”
Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “Tesla 'Cannot Guarantee' Roadster Reservation Holders Will Ever Get a Car” - Comment from 25 May 2026 in “Star Citizen game has reached $1B in funding”
Bugs and half-baked game loops
“it's way too half baked with lots of game breaking bugs”
Comment from 9 Sep 2026 in “No Man's Sky Cosmos” “a few game loops held together by string and duct tape”
Comment from 10 Sep 2026 in “No Man's Sky Cosmos” Costs rising with unclear funding
“a game that's at what? 40% of its projected goals/completion is now 33% more expensive than the most expensive game ever?”
Comment from 25 May 2026 in “Star Citizen game has reached $1B in funding” “Will $250 million and 20 wizards squeeze out an MVP in 9 months”
Comment from 25 May 2026 in “Star Citizen game has reached $1B in funding” “Star Citizen has half a billion funding, and then WHAT?”
Comment from 9 Sep 2026 in “No Man's Sky Cosmos” Scope creep and overbuilt features
“I worked on Star Citizen and saw the lure of inflating project scope, responding to the vox populi, go to someone's head in realtime.”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “My smart sleep mask broadcasts users' brainwaves to an open MQTT broker” “easier to just give people the real thing than do another refactor”
Comment from 25 May 2026 in “Star Citizen game has reached $1B in funding” “are just bells and whistles that I close after 30 seconds of use”
Comment from 25 Oct 2026 in “We should be more ambitious with the software we build”
Other space simulation games people recommend
The four most recommended other space simulation games, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No Man's Sky | 97 | 100 | 49% | 7 | 10 yrs16 owners | — |
| Kerbal Space Program | 24 | 9 | 73% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Starflight | 17 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
| Elite Dangerous | 15 | 5 | 75% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Star CitizenThis page | 11 | 20 | 35% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
29 of the 31 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“are just bells and whistles that I close after 30 seconds of use”
“was supposed to release 12 years ago. And they are still collecting money.”
“We love the star citizen funding model.”
“a few game loops held together by string and duct tape”
“I'd wish star citizen approached the game loop similarly”
“the only game that seems to hit the mark of what im actually itching for is star citizen”
“Star Citizen has half a billion funding, and then WHAT?”
“it's way too half baked with lots of game breaking bugs”
“I guess Chris Roberts and Star Citizen will join that club”
“a dedicated page for Star Citizen that's just one giant 256pt font”
“could either turn out to be epoch-defining or fusterclucks of truly epic proportions”
“shows 0 sign of ever actually landing”
“I'm even surprisingly able to play Star Citizen, which is notoriously finicky.”
“they are forever in a beta state with no clear ship date in the future for their two games”
“they're all more polished, more fun, more worth your money than this”
“The joke is that the space opera future has arrived before Star Citizen.”
“not that much to play and weird bugs”
“from what I hear, it offers a uniquely immersive experience”
“Will $250 million and 20 wizards squeeze out an MVP in 9 months”
“By the time they do a final release we'll have people playing it on the Moon and Mars.”
“I certainly got my money's worth of entertainment from these few fly-throughs.”
“easier to just give people the real thing than do another refactor”
“College was 5 years ago, and I’m still waiting.”
“a game that's at what? 40% of its projected goals/completion is now 33% more expensive than the most expensive game ever?”
“It's certainly unparalleled.”
“I worked on Star Citizen and saw the lure of inflating project scope, responding to the vox populi, go to someone's head in realtime.”
“this would be a much better game if they had simplified the graphics”
“Start citizen runs fine and gives excellent FPS NOW”
“runs really well on Linux”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.