After a plethora of milestones in Star Citizen's lucrative crowdfunding campaign, Roberts Space Industries has reached another as it achieves $55 million in funding: the title of largest crowdfunded project ever.

This record extends past the video game industry, encompassing any project on Kickstarter or similar sites to date. Creator Chris Roberts called this "unthinkable" on the Star Citizen blog , saying that the company still intends to spend all of the money on development, not for profits before release."Every effort is about enriching the game’s vision," he writes. "Funding to date has allowed us to go so far beyond what I thought was possible in 2012. You’re still getting that game, no question, but it will be all the richer and so much more immersive because of the additional funding."Roberts Space Industries and Cloud Imperium Games added original alien languages when funds surpassed $50 million in funding ; anyone who pledged before the $55 million milestone will receive Ballistic Gattling, allowing them to swap between two ammunition types without exiting their ship. If the developer reaches $56 million, the Arena Commander Upgrade will be unlocked. There aren't any details about this milestone, but as of this writing, funding is about $500k away from the new goal Roberts said that his continued crowdfunding efforts are aimed at creating an ever-expanding project, and that he's had to reevaluate the entire development process."It’s not being developed like a normal game and it’s not being funded like a normal game," he writes. "I’ve had to toss aside a lot of my knowledge from the old way of developing and embrace a completely new world. There is no publisher. There is no venture capitalist wanting a massive return in three years. There is no need to cram the game onto a disc and hope we got it all right."Star Citizen is not the type of game that will be played for a few weeks, then put on a shelf to gather dust."

Mike Mahardy is a freelance journalist writing for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter at @mmahardy , where he rants about Kurt Vonnegut and Wes Anderson.