'Star Citizen' release date, latest news: Game developers announce switch to Amazon's Lumberyard engine

Game developers Cloud Imperium Games announced last Monday, Dec. 26, that their much-awaited game, "Star Citizen," will be switching from Crytek's CryEngine to Amazon's Lumberyard game engine.

According to Gamespot, creative director Chris Roberts issued a statement regarding the game's progress and its future working with Amazon's game engine.

"We've been working with Amazon for more than a year, as we have been looking for a technology leader to partner with for the long term future of Star Citizen and Squadron 42," Roberts stated.

"Lumberyard provides ground breaking technology features for online games, including deep back-end cloud integration on AWS and its social component with Twitch that enables us to easily and instantly connect to millions of global gamers," he continued.

With regards to how the transition from Crytek's game engine to Amazon's has been working, Roberts assured that the change to Lumberyard has been "very smooth and easy." In fact, he also announced that the upcoming release of "Star Citizen" 2.6 Alpha will be operating under the Lumberyard game engine and AWS.

This recent development comes just a few days after Crytek's declaration that they will be shutting down five studios because of the current financial turmoil they are facing. Robert Space Industries was quick to assure the supporters of the "Star Citizen" game project that its development will not be affected by studio closures and financial troubles at Crytek.

"We are totally not dependent on them for anything at this point," communications director David Swofford told Polygon.

"Star Citizen" is a crowdfunded project announced back in October 2012. The project has raised more than $139 million for its development, earning the title as the most successful crowdfunded project ever. The game features an all-star cast including Mark Hamill, Gary Oldman, and Gillian Anderson.

After four years since the project's crowdfunding campaign, the full game is yet to be released. However, the game's FPS mode, "Star Marine," now has a beta version.