Pilots. Friends.

Star Conflict once began with the first battles, the first ships, and the first attempts to understand what its universe would be like. Today, fourteen years later, we are nearing the end of this wonderful story.

Over the past fourteen years, the game has changed several times, becoming almost a different game altogether with new ship classes, factions, game modes, locations, and game systems introduced. Too much has happened to fit into a single letter. That’s why today we want not to simply inform you about the end of the project, but to look back on the journey Star Conflict has taken over the years.

It has been 5,294 days since the first battles in the closed beta testing. During that time, you went to battle 97,717,550 times and spent 29,653,666 hours in the game, which is more than 3,380 years of total playtime.

Over the past fourteen years, 4.3 million unique accounts have been created in Star Conflict. We’ve released over 170 updates, added 311 ships, and created 90 locations.

Behind each of these numbers is one of you, someone who once clicked the “Battle” button.

Someone who first piloted their ship during the closed beta testing. Someone who found themselves in this universe for the first time many years later. Someone who played every day, someone who returned months or even years later, just to see the familiar hangar again, hear the familiar “Welcome back, captain,” and set off on another mission.

Let’s look back at a few moments that had a particularly significant impact on the game’s history.

• On September 14, 2011, the first news about the project was released.

• On April 11, 2012, closed beta testing began.

• On July 24, 2012, open beta testing was launched for anyone interested.

• On February 27, 2013, Star Conflict was released on Steam.

• On September 4, 2014, beta testing ended, and update 1.0 was released.

And then began the story that many of you remember firsthand.

• On March 26, 2015, dreadnoughts were introduced.

• In late 2015, you began gathering resources for future destroyers, and on January 14, 2016, you were able to build the first ships of the new class.

• On December 19, 2016, the “Ellydium Theta” station and the new Ellydium faction with its unique ships were introduced to the game.

• On December 19, 2017, update 1.5.0 was released, completely changing the progression system and the fleet.

And then there were new ships, new game modes, new locations, new factions, and new stories. The game itself changed. Sometimes drastically. Sometimes so much that, a few years later, it was hard to recognize it. But some things remained the same.

Several generations of players have played Star Conflict over the past fourteen years. For some, this game was their first major online gaming experience. For some, it was a place where they made friends. For some, it was a familiar evening ritual after work or school. Some built their first ship and were happy about every new part. Some spent hours debating ship builds. Some remember their first mission, their first victory, or that very ship that once seemed like an unattainable dream. Some met other players in chat, formed corporations, participated in tournaments, and spent nights in battle. And some simply returned to the game from time to time.

That’s probably why shutting down Star Conflict is especially hard. We’re closing a place where a huge number of small, but important to someone, events took place over the course of fourteen years.

We made mistakes, too. We made decisions that, looking back years later, we wish we’d handled differently. We experimented, made wrong choices, argued, reworked things, and tried again. All this time, we tried to make a game that we’d want to come back to.

But we don’t want the story of Star Conflict to end along with the servers. Tomorrow, after the servers go offline, we’ll release Star Conflict Community Edition, a special version of the game that will let you run a local server on your computer and return to Star Conflict years from now. See familiar ships. Step into your old hangar. Show the game to friends. And maybe one day, someone who doesn’t even know about Star Conflict today will launch the Community Edition and hear “Welcome back, captain” for the first time. And then the story that began fourteen years ago won’t end for good. Because now, its continuation will depend on you.

And yet, Star Conflict’s greatest legacy isn’t the numbers or the statistics, but the time we spent together. Memories of the people we met. Of the battles that left a lasting impression. Of the ships that were once our favorites. Of victories, defeats, arguments, jokes, chance encounters, and those evenings when “just one more battle” unexpectedly turned into several hours.

Star Conflict meant something different to everyone. And that’s why each of us will have our own story about this game.

Thank you to everyone who has been with us, to those who joined us fourteen years ago and those who joined yesterday.

Thank you to those who have played for thousands of hours and those who have spent just a few evenings in the game.

Thank you to those who founded corporations and to those who preferred to fly solo.

Thank you to those who praised us, and a special thank you to those who criticized us: sometimes it was precisely because of you that the game got better.

Thank you for your suggestions, debates, bug reports, memes, videos, livestreams, fan content, and even just your chat messages.

Thank you for never letting this world become empty all this time.

Without you, Star Conflict would never have become what it is today.

Fourteen years is a very long time.

During this time, the children who first launched Star Conflict alongside their parents have grown up. People have graduated from high school and college, found their first jobs, moved to new cities, made friends, and started families. For some, almost everything has changed during this time. But all along, there’s been a small space hangar, a familiar ship, and the “Battle” button.

But we want to believe that this isn’t just the end. It’s also a chance to pause, look back, and say, “That was great.”

Yes, not everything went perfectly. Yes, there were mistakes. There were difficult times, controversial decisions, and moments when it seemed like everything was going wrong. But there were also thousands of hours spent together. There were victories. There were friends. There was Star Conflict.

Today we’re bringing the story of Star Conflict as an active online game to a close. But we don’t want to put an end to your story with this game. Cherish your memories. Save your screenshots, battle videos, and stories about the people you’ve met here. And if someday, years from now, you open the Community Edition again, see a familiar ship, and for a moment recall that very evening when you first went into battle, then it was all worth it. Thank you for flying with us.

It’s been a great journey. And we’ve all been on it together.

Thank you for these fourteen years. It has been an incredible pleasure to be a part of your story. And if one day you hear “Welcome back, captain” again, we hope you’ll smile.

Because we’ll be smiling, too.

See you in space!

With endless respect and gratitude,
Your Star Conflict team

Pilots! There are only a few days left until the official game servers will be shut down, and we’d like to clarify how this process will unfold, along with related events and other details.

October 8, 13:00 GMT: official Star Conflict forum will be closed. It will no longer be accessible, and clicking on a forum link will automatically redirect you to the game’s page on Steam.

October 9, 10:00 GMT: shutdown of the game’s official servers. We understand that this is somewhat earlier than the date we previously announced, but this decision was made to provide players with the Community Edition as soon as possible and to promptly fix any bugs or issues.

After the servers are shut down, we will begin working on releasing the Community Edition on Steam. The content of the project’s official website will be updated to include instructions for using this version of the game.

Other platforms:

• Star Conflict Wiki will remain available;

• Official Discord server will remain available; the structure of the server may change with outdated channels archived.

If you have any questions about the Community Edition or need help, we recommend using the general discussion page on Steam.

We would like to thank you once again for your support throughout the entire period that the official servers were online, and we wish you the best of luck in making your dreams come true in the Community Edition!