Chris Roberts, who helped define the space sim genre in computer games during the 1990s with his Wing Commander and Privateer franchises, is back in the cockpit again with a new title he says will change the way people perceive games for the PC and will breathe new life into space combat games.

Roberts’ re-entry into gaming comes after he spent more than a decade as a director and producer in the Hollywood film industry. In 1990, he introduced Wing Commander to the world of PC gaming and the franchise went on to sell millions of units and spawned multiple sequels, a feature film and another highly successful game franchise, Privateer.

Star Citizen, still in early development stages but already 12 months into production, will not require a subscription, but will not be free-to-play either. Roberts says the game will be available for a one-time purchase. And while players will be able to play in the Star Citizen universe for free, there will also be virtual items available for purchase with in-game credits so players can customize their ships and other items.

Star Citizen have surpassed three million dollars in pledges, a combination of a Kickstarter campaign (now at more than one million dollars in pledges) and a self-managed crowd funding program (more than two million dollars in pledges) underway at Cloud Imperium’s Roberts Space Industries (RSI) site. There are now nearly 44 thousand backers of the project. Both crowd funding projects will close in 10 days.

“It’s hard to believe we’re already at this important milestone,” said Roberts. “It’s far beyond our initial objective and well into some of the stretch goals…and we still have 10 days left in the campaign. This amazing success is all thanks to our incredible fans.

“This is extremely exciting for me and our team because it will enable us to create the game we’ve been talking about to our fans over the past month. But we can do even more. I’m still hoping that we’ll reach four million dollars before we close. This will allow us to do more sooner, especially on things like our modder tools.”

Part of the plan to help reach the four million dollar goal is a pledge referral program, launched just this week. Current backers are encouraged to enlist their friends in the crowd funding efforts. They’ll all have chances for amazing prizes including an Alienware Aurora desktop computer, Oculus Rift headsets, NVIDIA Geforce graphics cards and Logitech joysticks and gamepads.