While Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games opens a new studio in Germany, it has lost one of its top talents.
Star Citizen executive producer Alex Mayberry left Cloud Imperium Games and production of the ambitious, crowdfunding space sim last month, according to the developer (as first reported by Game Informer). Major departures are not unheard of in game development, but considering fans have contributed nearly $85 million to see Cloud Imperium deliver a massive, galaxy-spanning action game with ultra-high production values, Star Citizen will likely have to put up with more scrutiny than most games of this size — especially considering the game is only playable in limited dog-fighting and 3D ship viewing modes.
“Alex left Cloud Imperium Games last month for personal reasons,” a spokesperson told GamesBeat. “Our global head of production is Erin Roberts, and a lot of Alex’s duties now fall into his jurisdiction. We were sorry that Alex had to leave the CIG family.”
If Erin Roberts’ name sounds familiar, that’s because he is the brother of Chris Roberts, the founder of Cloud Imperium Games. Erin Roberts has worked with Chris on a many of his projects including Privateer 2 and StarLancer.
This consolidation of power among the Brothers Roberts comes at a time when Star Citizen development is drawing a lot of attention. Last week, Chris Roberts addressed the ongoing delay of the first-person shooter module for the space sim. These delays, which are typical for major triple-A releases, have fans starting to worry. More than 920,000 people have given money to this project (mostly in exchange for in-game ships and items) with only a promise that they’ll get to fly them in the full Star Citizen game at some point in the future.
Mayberry came to Cloud Imperium after spending nearly 10 years working at World of Warcraft publisher Blizzard Entertainment. He was the lead producer on action role-playing game Diablo III. Prior to that, he worked on World of Warcraft expansions Wrath of the Lich King and The Burning Crusade.
Before Blizzard, Mayberry also oversaw the America’s Army project, which is a government-produced first-person shooter that is completely free to players.