Star Citizen reaches $38 million; can you believe it?

Star Citizen, the PC space simulator from Wing Commander Chris Roberts and developer Cloud Imperium Games, is continuing to break records. As of this week, the game has now raised more than $38 million from over 382,000 backers. This is up from $37 million at the end of January.

Star Citizen is already the most successful crowdfunded project in history from a dollars perspective, easily surpassing the next closest competitor: the Pebble Watch ($10 million).

To put Star Citizen's new funding milestone into context, Epic Games revealed in 2006 that development on the original Gears of War cost $10 million, while Tim Schafer's 2008 action game Brutal Legend had a budget of around $25 million.

Now that the $38 million milestone has been reached, players have unlocked the Cano, Oretani, and Kabal systems. You can read more about them on the game's website. Should funding reach $39 million, Cloud Imperium Games will announce a "new goal that will help chart the course for the future of Star Citizen in a different way," Roberts teased. Up until now, every milestone has unlocked a new system.

"As always, thank you for your continued support of Star Citizen. It's hard to properly express how grateful we are to the community for letting us pursue this dream," Roberts said. "I know that everyone is eager to see more of Star Citizen as quickly as possible--more ships, more systems, more gameplay--and I promise you that we’re just as eager to get that out there."

Star Citizen is expected to officially launch sometime later this year.