The Squadron 42 beta has been delayed by three months, Cloud Imperium Games has announced.

The beta for Star Citizen's story-based single-player campaign is now set for the third quarter of 2020 - so at some point during July, August or September next year. It had been due out during the second quarter of 2020.

This delay is down to "staggered development", a new way of making the controversial space project. It involves splitting up the various development teams between multiple delivery dates so they release larger features every couple of quarters instead of every quarter, but due to their staggered nature, there's still an update every quarter for players.

"You will of course notice that our target beta date for Squadron 42 has moved back by 12 weeks in today's roadmap update," CIG said in a blog post, "but this is a necessary step as a result of changing the overall development cadence, which we expect will create positive results in the overall delivery and experience of Squadron 42."

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Star Citizen's development is well-documented. It's been in the works for nearly seven years and has raised an astonishing $233m from 2.3 million backers, but a release date remains nowhere in sight.

Squadron 42, which is set to star a number of big-name actors including Mark Hamill, Gary Oldman and Gillian Anderson, is pitched as the spiritual successor to developer Chris Roberts' much-loved Wing Commander series.