Hitchhiking with the crowd: Star Citizen space sim reaches $42M in funding

Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium reached a significant milestone in its efforts to raise cash to pay for development, and that prompted it to add an important new item to the game: a towel.

Fans have contributed more than $42 million to the production of Star Citizen. That’s the total Cloud Imperium has raised in crowdfunding on its own site as well as through the Kickstarter platform to play for the space-trading and dogfighting simulator. The space sim’s in production now, and it will debut at some point in 2015. To celebrate reaching $42 million, Star Citizen director Chris Roberts revealed that his team is adding a towel to the game in a reference to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That beloved sci-fi comedy hypothesized that the meaning of life, the universe, and everything is 42.