Intercept Games has finally made the announcement the long-awaited follow-up to the “Scuffed NASA Simulator” Kerbal Space Program is finally coming in February 2023. In a new blog from the developers, Intercept Games goes over their main objectives for the sequel and plans for the future after February’s initial launch.
It’s clear that they have been listening closely to the KSP community as some basic features that were once mods in the first game are now included. Interstellar travel, while not available right off the bat, will be a major component of Kerbal Space Program 2, allowing players to work their way up to sending Kerbals to neighboring star systems using near-light speed travel. Intercept also goes on to show off full-size colonies on planets, which itself was another extremely popular mod for the first KSP.
The overall systems of KSP2 also seem to be getting tons of smoothing over and refinement. The user interfaces and experiences seem much more user-friendly and don’t require an engineering degree to navigate like before. Intercept also showed off the ability to display a sense of style in the vehicles with much deeper customization on vehicles and rockets.
An often overlooked, but critical part of any game’s longevity especially on PC is its mod scene. Intercept is pulling no punches on that front, hiring one of the most prominent Kerbal Space Program vehicle modders to become part of the team, and continually bringing up their desire to work with the modding community to improve the experience. Mentions of efficiency with mods, mod versioning, and streamlined packaging processes indicate that KSP2 will likely have a massive head start with custom mods even in its early stages when it launches.
The biggest feature drop in the video, however, is the inclusion of multiplayer. That said, not many details have been unveiled, as Intercept intends to release this feature later into development. The Kerbal Space Center, or KSC, has been greatly expanded to reflect the inclusion of multiplayer with four usable launchpads for rockets and two runways for other aircraft. There could be a lot less legwork from players needed to construct bases on other planets and even massive servers of whole space agencies run by people in the Kerbal system.
Kerbal Space Program will be going into Early Access on PC via Epic Games Store and Steam on February 24, 2023.
