Crytek and Cloud Imperium Games have been preparing for a legal battle over "Star Citizen" since late 2017, with Crytek claiming that the developer violated the licensing agreement and committed copyright infringement, but at Crytek's request the lawsuit will soon likely to be dismissed.

Crytek's lawsuit hinges on the release of Squadron 42, a standalone single-player campaign, which (according to court documents posted on Reddit by RiSC1911) will not be ready for trial.

"Crytek has issued multiple public statements indicating that CIG will release Squadron 42 as a standalone game in the first half of 2020 as the basis for its main claim in this lawsuit," the memorandum states.

According to the motion, based on what was discovered during discovery, in which the companies had to share information, Crytek "intends to refile the lawsuit against CIG after the release of 'Squadron 42'" and wants the lawsuit voluntarily dismissed.

In late November, Crytek was told that CIG had not decided how to release the game, although the actual answer was redacted. However, there is some useful background to this question: Crytek had asked CIG to state whether "Squadron 42" would be released as a standalone game, and the developer had previously confirmed this. But now it appears that they had not yet confirmed that, at least not in late 2018.

Crytek claims that the redacted response "was a surprise" and, ominously, will be a surprise to those who paid in advance for Squadron 42. He also claims that there are other cases in which CIG's official statements do not match the statements made in the lawsuit.

"There is a noticeable pattern in this litigation of CIG publicly stating one thing and stating something else in the lawsuit. For example, at the outset of this litigation, CIG publicly stated that it had switched to using the Lumberyard Engine for both Star Citizen and Squadron 42, but was forced to confirm during this litigation that no such switch had occurred.

The status of Squadron 42 is currently up in the air and has already been postponed several times; in August 2019, the beta launch of Squadron 42, originally scheduled for this summer, was postponed for 12 weeks, but since then the date target has become wider and Chris Ro Bartz has said late 2020.

The trial was originally scheduled for June, which would have been before Squadron 42's release, so the two sides agreed to postpone it to October 13. However, Crytek still wants the lawsuit dismissed, suggesting that it does not expect the game to be released before then.