Squadron 42: first external playtest in Manchester, 5 hours of play and first impressions (October 10, 2026)

The first external playtest of the single-player campaign took place on October 9 at Cloud Imperium Games' offices in Manchester. No CIG statement has described it so far. The session details and impressions below come from accounts by participants, published on Reddit and YouTube. These are first-hand impressions gathered right after a private event.

What happened in Manchester

According to a Reddit account, participants were split into several groups, each on its own PC. The session lasted five hours without interruption, apart from a brief visit from actor Mark Hamill. Among the guests, one participant names BoredGamer, Morph and Sulyce. Content creator Citizen Spooner, who has followed the project for 14 years, published a video about his five hours of play. In it, he covers the story, the characters, flying, on-foot combat, bugs and performance.

Technical and gameplay impressions

Notes compiled from several creators, including Camak, Hugo Lisoir and Citizen Spooner, are circulating on Reddit. They report in particular:

• animations and graphics described as far superior to those of Star Citizen, with native 4K rendering at 60 frames per second, without upscaling, on the creators' machines;
• a Maelstrom destruction system that reportedly applies to everything, from environments to character armor;
• very intense on-foot combat, with AI capable of covering its allies and firing through certain destructible materials;
• a first encounter with a Vanduul, whose scripted event has been reworked, and a demanding EVA sequence in which a failed grab means instant death in the void;
• three difficulty levels, adjustable separately for on-foot combat and flying;
• a quantum jump simplified to a single button, with no loading time, which nonetheless requires avoiding anomalies in transit to stabilize the bubble.

On stability, witnesses report very few crashes and some minor bugs: an NPC in his underwear, and a meal sliding off its tray. In one case, a ship collided with a station and blocked the session.

The verdict on the release date

Hugo Lisoir published a report in French. He replayed the full introduction (1h10), then discovered 3h50 of new content, without a single crash. He believes the game will "certainly not be ready for November" and estimates five or six months of remaining fixes, which he describes as bug cleanup rather than missing content. Another participant, quoted as ExpatBrat, sums it up: a lot of fun, but a game that is "not ready for release."

Not all reactions are glowing. BoredGamer, whose comments are relayed by TenPoundFortyTwo, calls the game the "best walking simulator" he has ever played, with "not enough gameplay." On Spectrum, a thread titled 5-hour game play session, 2 hours of cut scenes points to a share of cutscenes judged too high.

Context

The event had been building for several days. On October 7, several creators, including Enderprize, announced they were flying to Manchester to try Squadron 42 for about five hours. Before the event, a Reddit thread claimed this was the first time in fifteen years of development that players outside CIG had touched the game. According to that account, the confidentiality agreement only covered sharing images, which left participants free to describe their experience. The Spectrum thread SQ42 Playtest had 198 votes at that point.

On October 6, CIG had also stated in "10 From the Community" that the new flight model, without Master Modes, was finished and working in Squadron 42.

What is established, what is reported

The event did take place: several creators published videos and accounts, including Citizen Spooner and Enderprize. Everything else, from the makeup of the groups to performance, Mark Hamill's visit and the schedule, rests on individual accounts. These may reflect only part of the experience of the finished game. CIG has not officially confirmed anything in the available sources.

What we still don't know

CIG has not commented on the event. The estimate of five to six months of fixes comes from a single creator.