The End Of KSP2? Some Ranty Thoughts. 

KSP made for consumers. KSP2 made for shareholders. A tale as old as time.

As someone who played KSP1 since its alpha, I really hope this isn't the end of KSP2 but I am afraid to believe in it.

I agree with basically everything you say here. I remember when it launched I was on the "it's only early access, it will get better" team, now I'm far-opposite.

A classic example of what happens when a small studio “sells out” to a large publisher. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame any of the original or new developers for this, but this would’ve never happened if Take Two, one of the scummiest publishers out there, hadn’t gotten their hands on this IP. Modern “AAA” publishers are the worst thing to have ever happened to gaming.

Star theory never really understood the game or the player base. KSP1 was fun DISPITE the bugs, not BECAUSE of them.

What I can’t believe is the huge number of staff, 70! Judging by their output I would have guessed only 10 people max were working on KSP2.

It’s almost like the more money and staff is thrown at a project the worst it becomes. It’s not even diminishing returns, there are no returns after some point, the product genuinely becomes bad, it’s fascinating.

Early access is meant to be for indie groups that needs the money to keep going, not the AAA industry Also seeing the AAA priced "early access" game made me wait for a full release when it could remotely justify that price tag

If KSP 2 ever sees a 1.0 release, it will be the only game this studio has ever released that wasn't abandonware. The odds were never good.

I've been waiting for KSP2 to finish cooking but this I fear is the end. Hope someone rescues it.

first time i noticed something was off was when they made the first announcement off ksp2 releasing early 2020 and when covid came they pushed the release date to late 2021, they should have been allready almost finished by the time covid hit but they pushed it back for 1.5 years.

KSP2 failed because Nate the "developer" over promised and under delivered.. Take two is a public traded business that answers to its share holders. It was originally announced in 2019 and was pushed back multiple times. Take Two and Private Division are to blame for putting together a team not capable of actually producing a finished product.

After playing Juno: New Origins, they should have gone with procedural parts. Solves the wobble issue, an overly long and thin fuel tank won't wobble, but will suffer a dry mass penalty. Avoids cluttering the part selection UI with a vast array of parts that only differ in the type of propellant carried and in their size.

While I agree that the push for EA was probably from higher ups looking for a return... It had been in development since when? 2017? Covid didn't help development, but even accounting for it, that's still a really long time in the oven for what ended up in EA. I kind of feel like they were justified in getting some revenue, even if it obviously was not the right call for the game. It just seems to me like the publisher isn't the only reason the game ended up in the state that it was at launch or is now.

I don't want ksp2 to be closed this summer after layoffs. The game clearly has potential! Ksp2 lacked that colonies and interstellar flights to become a different game! The first part also became a NORMAL game after a long time, I think with the second part it was only necessary to wait (or find other programmers).I hope that this is not the end yet and we will wait for the next progress on the roadmap.Greetings from a KSP fan from Russia

50 USD for EA : Insane. Then bugs, features missing,... Sorry for those who gave their cash.

Its insane that in span of ONE week three of my favourite games will start burrying themself (Tarkov,Helldivers 2, KSP2)

I fully believe if they hadn't released early access and just waited til it was done, none of this would have gone wrong.

Corporate greed demolishes creativity. It no longer became a game for the players, it became a product for the investors.

I honestly knew it was doomed when i saw the trailers, they highlighted the team as some sort of ksp gaurdians. It was over right there

My thoughts are exactly the same. KSP2 made me realize I should never pay for EA anymore and always wait for full release. I played only 22h because I couldn't stand all the things you just pointed out. I'd like to refund the game but it's against Steam policy. No more paying up front.

Man do I wish it was better than it went. Despite everything, we still have KSP1 and endless mods that will now no longer break since the game is finished

I really don’t understand how it took them 4 years to get to that alpha build when KSP was built by a much, much smaller team. It reeks of micro management from the top. ETA: Regarding the UI, the in-flight UI is deeply inaccessible to folks with vision problems. Even with my glasses, the font is stupidly hard to read.

The way you talked about the business world made me envision Nate Simpson at this big corporate board meeting where they grill him, and he just gives them a totally honest nice guy answer like he always does. Then it's like the meme where the dude gets thrown out the window 😢

This is exactly what i think happened. The LUDICROUS spec requirements and atrocious performance and quality where the biggest killers of KSP 2 imo. KSP is an old game and has low-ish requirments and I had a mid tier pc that could run it with a ton of graphics mods and all the settings cranked to the max. KSP 2 was so laggy and buggy I noped out of a purchase immediately upon watching a stream by stratzenblitz. This was for me and probably many people an unimaginably high barrier to entry where we just literally couldn't play the game if we wanted too.

If I'm a suit, I think I'm probably seeing the light at the end of the tunnel when you consider the five million copies that KSP 1 sold, the game clearly has a potential audience. But, if you consider how poorly the game sold, and the original release date of 2020 (lol), even when considering the pandemic, they probably did several years longer development than was originally budgeted for. Idk, i hate corporate "assistance" in game development as much as the next guy, but i find in this case, i almost understand the choice to cut their losses, at this point. Just my view.

Some quick corrections from a game dev. Private Division owned Intercept. The latter were an internal studio, so it's work for hire, not work under contract. More direct control for PD, plus ability to do layoffs, as we've seen happen. Alpha version of a game is feature-complete. For KSP2 it would by definition have to have included interstellar, colonies, and multiplayer. KSP2 Early Access doesn't qualify even for an early alpha. It's a pre-alpha with some vertical slices, to put it into dev terms. Nobody in the industry would have expected Early Access to pay for KSP2 development. T2 wasn't trying to make PD show positive balance on this. The push for EA wasn't so much to generate real revenue as to gauge public interest. Sort of, "Hype's good, but put your money where your mouths are." But the underlying reason is likely the same. KSP2 development was costing a lot of money and T2 was getting nervous about the costs. Wobble wasn't forced in. That's a misunderstanding of what has been stated. (I'm wearing my game physics programmer hat for this part.) The choice was between completely rigid rockets vs a simulated flex. KSP2 went with simulated flex, exactly the same as KSP did. And if you look at early KSP builds, they had largely the same problems as KSP2. Intercept was trying to fix the problem differently from how Squad handled it with autostruts initially, but the physics engineer they had didn't have adequate experience in game physics. That was purely a technical failure to execute, and not an intentional design decision to make things unplayably unstable. Visual fidelity cleanup happens late in alpha. As mentioned before, the game never made it that far in the development process. This isn't what the game was meant to look like. Things tend to look shinier and more contrasty in pre- and early alpha because it makes testing tech easier. Finally, the bad UI comes off more as "programmer art", rather than somebody putting their foot down. I'm sure it would have eventually gotten a UI/UX pass from people who know how to make game UI. But again, we never got this far. This likely applies to the whole saving system as well. I can see how it would sound like a good idea to a programmer. Not much impact on conclusions on the net - KSP2 EA was entirely too raw for general public. I enjoyed playing it, but mostly because working on unfinished games is my job (as part of finishing them...) so I'm used to dealing with all the jank. For a typical player experienced with KSP? Yeah, basically all the things you've said.

2 things really puzzle me. First, the product we have really doesn't reflect all the materials they offered us before early release. It seemed way more polished and implicated in the videos than what we got. And second, i'm surprised it lasted so long before the plugged was pulled. And it's not even official! It blew out because someone found the layoff announcement and posted it.

Can't wait for Rocketwerks "Gerbal Space Program" to release, where we get to fly little furry brown rodents to distant planets and moons!

I like the green men though..

As much as I am disappointed that we wont be getting a feature complete KSP2 due to Take Two greed, Intercept Games had 5 years and all they did was make KSP1 with fewer features. The work was already done for them, just copy and paste and add a few more features.

On the one hand: I desperately wanted a KSP sequel. On the other hand: As soon as they announced that T2I bought the IP, I knew the game would never be better than the original.

KSP1 vet who was brick walled by bugs. A couple months ago my jet engines all kept trying to use nonexistent rocket engines at takeoff causing them to reverse thrust. Normal, basic, jets engines were using nonexistent reverse thrust because it was failing to use nonexistent rocket components because it sensed low air intake. Didn't get fixed

ARMA 3 is another example of early access done right, and was one of the first games to use steam early access. It was £15, didn't stay in early access that long, just long enough to do something with the feedback, and they gave the first few DLC out for free to all owners of the game. Unfortunately, since then early access has increasingly become an excuse for developers to release unfinished games at full price, and has likely been responsible for a fair few games never reaching their potential. A lot of games don't do it as it was intended, to get player feedback and help fund the development.

Happy to see you are into KSP as well as I know you through your great content about War Thunder. I have been genuinely repelled from KSP2 by all the bad publicity surrounding it. Recently I checked if it had gotten any better or if I have to stick to the original KSP, since Im taking a break from War Thunder for a bit. To me, the dissatisfaction only grew from hearing about KSP2s roadmap and its player numbers. The current news really put the last nail in the coffin for me. KSP2 is a dead end.

Wow I’ve been watching quite a few videos on this topic. Never expected one of my favorite RU-vidrs to cover the game as well!

I think the main issue here is that KSP as a concept is impossible as a corpo project, because it takes way too long to develop games with more advanced physics.

"I'm not happy but I'm not surprised." -- This speaks for all fans, I think. The moment that we saw the incredibly ambitious scope and took into consideration what we got on launch day, we knew that this wouldn't work.

Really good video! Weird that YT just showed me the channel. Subbing for KSP1 content!

would watch the hell out of a realism overhaul playthrough :)

Yeah your analysis tracks with my thoughts too.

Things like that happens all the time: SimCity > Cities Skyline 1 (dont mention the second one), RollerCoaster Tycoon World -> Planet Coaster, Flatout >2 - Wreckfest,...

Great assessment but you glossed over the development troubles prior to Early Access. When KSP 2 was announced a launch date of 2020 was given. After repeated delays and restructurings Early Access eventually opened in 2023. It seems evident that Early Access was an attempt to salvage a development that was in crisis and possibly at risk of cancellation.

why is the video at 4k if the video is like 1080p size? or just insanely low bitrate... OBS: .mp4, NVIDA NVENC HEVC, VBR 34,000-80,000 Kbps, P4 Medium, Low Latency, Two Passes or Nivida NVENC AV1 same settings for 60fps double res, and export to about VBR 45,000-65,000Kbps.

I'm curious on your thoughts, if any, about Juno:New Origins. I discovered it after the news about KSP2's demise broke and so far out seems pretty interesting. More complex in some ways than KSP2, with native support for a very robust visual scripting/automation system. It also leans heavily into procedural parts, right down to modifying the engine chamber pressure and gas cycle.

Best analysis video I have seen so far

KSP2 was doomed from the time they paid all those content creators to say it wasnt going to be Early Access and showed a roadmap and then back tracked and tried to claim they never said that despite all the videos being there easily accessible to see the proof. This team was never going to be able to make KSP2 the way they wanted with the staff they had. Its what happens when you get a fan company making a sequel to a game they never made.

If they pull the plug on the project, could they please release or sell the source code? They spent a lot of time on it so it’s probably worth it for another studio to pick up where they left off, maybe even as a purely crowdfunded undertaking.

1:05 No, they didn't. It was easy to tell that they were highly edited, basically just CGI video that showed little to no gameplay. I was screaming this from day 1 and it was literally the biggest red flag, but everyone was too hyped about seeing pretty images.

I’m…disappointed but not surprised. KSP2 looked pretty in trailers but the actual game since EA has been underwhelming compared to its predecessor. For Science! Update has largely brought KSP2 to where KSP1 had been, but aside from the graphical update, KSP2 still doesn’t offer much of anything new over the original. The Colony update might, but as the plug has been pulled, I’m skeptical we will see much of anything past that point.

Good analysis. It's sad to see the end of a franchise that's been so cool for so long - even though KSP2 has tons of problems I feel it could have been beaten into shape over time. Cities Skylines drama, DCS drama with a 3rd party developer, and now this? The gaming side of my 2024 hasn't been so great 😂

Hit the nail on the head. Got everything too, the shitty VAB cam, Workspaces etc. I am glad I am not the only one

100% agree with your notion that they spent a gazillion dollars on teaser videos and ‘behind the scenes’ films for years instead of proper development work. They recorded IRL rocket launch sounds and NASA building acoustics; did anyone notice? 🤬

Seeing the original KSP2 trailers had me really excited. But the price for early access, together with the early reports of problems - bugs and wet noodle rockets - I held off. As nothing seems to have improved to any great extent, I am still playing KSP1, and have got to the stage where I don't think I'm likely to make the change.

Loving KSP 1 and waiting on KSP 2 this is really sad to hear. Unfortunatly, without living through the troubles KSP 2 had, i feel like i agree with the OP... Such a bummer. It had a lot of potential. Hopefully the community can help take up the slack.

I absolutely agree with your thoughts on the business side of this. Furthermore, I suspect that you are also right about bad management at Intercept or Private Division. I feel sorry for the devs (!!!!) and surely a game like KSP2 involves a lot of HARD problems to solve, but considering the amount of time and resources the team had, the current state of KSP2 is somewhat baffling.

Dean Hall and his team have zero experience in N-body physics. His only response was something about Stationeers which has zero N-body physics as far as I can see. It was a good move not giving this IP to his studio. It was also a bad move giving it to Intercept Games.

If Ksp2 is dead but we get a spiritual sucessor with all new planets and bodies to explore and all the content Ksp2 was meant to get, then I would be ok with that. I am happy playing Ksp1 and I'm glad I never bought 2. Reguardless I didn't lose anything here, but it is sad this all happened.

Another element which had a negative impact on the early access release that you didn't touch on in your video, is the minimum and recommended system requirements for the game. I recall there being a lot of consternation from the community that they were far in excess of what was needed to play (even a fairly heavily modded) KSP1, and simply out of reach for much of the player base without spending a significant amount of money on new hardware.

Totally agree, this doesn't look anything like a good faith EA program. Manor Lords EA for example have already released an update that's specifically targets at feedback received, and of course BG3 was an exemplary EA.

Within 20 minutes of booting up the first release of KSP2, I had the inescapable feeling that this was a "product" that was pushed out by suits poring over spreadsheets, probably over the objections of the dev team (argue about their competence all you want, but I do believe the devs care about the franchise and wanted to make a good game). The giant mismatch between the visuals of the game - which were IMO impressive even at launch - and the quality of core fundamentals that a suit would never see or care about was obvious. This was a build made for presentation, not play. Still, I had hope that it would eventually be fleshed out into a worthy successor. I was beyond hyped for colonies, interstellar travel, even multiplayer. I guess I let that excitement blind me, a bit, to a truth I still knew deep down: that this thing I love so much was in the hands of soulless money vampires who wouldn't hesitate to kill it if it didn't feed them piles of cash. I had hope, a rare commodity here in 2024. I believed. Even though I can't say I'm much surprised, I'm still heartbroken. Whoever makes the game that KSP 2 should've been, shut up and take my money. I'll pay triple what KSP 2 cost me if it means getting another game from which, like KSP 1, I can reap literally thousands of hours of joy and wonder.

Great video. I would combine your points on the part manager feature, the early version available and the pretty graphic. It feels like the skeleton was well in place. Then they put on pretty graphics for screenshots so they could sell the game. I never thought the part manager was the expected outcome, but rather a concept they would refine over time. The whole UI felt like that to me. Great concepts, just not enough work.

Thank you for the insightful video.

To get to your video-footage: 5:55 who needs transfert windows....

Damn this is sad to see. Loved the first game but when KSP2 came out I saw all the problems and decided to get it later after some of the core issues were fixed. Sad to see they haven't spent their time doing that. Your last segment talking about how the game looks better than the first, while being a worse actual game really hit the nail on the head. Luckily the KSP1 modding scene is pretty good so at least that game might stay alive from it.

Spaceplane development is the one thing that is better is ksp2 than 1. Love the part editing and multi fuel management. If ksp2 dies I’ll likely keep playing as the majority of features around spaceplanes are perfect for me. Really wanted multiplayer though :)

KSP was one of the first video games I played on PC! Ive been waiting to pick up KSP2 until it’s polished and complete enough to be worth playing over KSP, but I guess thats never going to happen now. sad…

Great video and I agree which by the way the OG KSP1 dev has a game on Steam SEA called Kithack model club and wile not a space game it's what KSP2 kinda should have been SEA wise.

They had a super huge community where they could have got them to make content. Impossible to loose money

Yes, agreed. Best reasoning I've heard to date. With no shilling. Shame you weren't the one asking Nate questions in interviews.

i love how i can come to your channels and get news on my favorite games. not only war thunder but i find out also KSP? if you start making videos on tarkov youll have hit the trifecta with me XD

The point of early access is to be able to, you know play the game. The fact that most people's hardware wasn't within the minimum requirements was telling. Workspaces are ridiculously bad. Fingers crossed, PD actually do develop KSP 2 to completion and that we get better overall communication & progress though that probably won't be the case as the new team will have to pick up the pieces (assuming there is a next team).

I have had a lot of the same ideas. I got the one opinionated guy vibe with the wobbly rockets in general. Like dude...I felt more exasperated and worried about that right from the get go. The core of the game was never wobbly rockets. No one has a review that is like "you should by KSP because the rockets wobble."

Early access works for small teams because it is one guy in a basement. For AAA, it's 70 people all with full time salaries. Of course they burn through cash quick!

They did not follow the recipe. Krabby Patties are made with Love

Also, when hardware recommendations were posted and 12gigs of RAM was MINIMUM (for this kind of game...) I knew right away they weren't interested in optimizing the game or tightening up code.

It is unfortunate. I have high hopes for a modernized KSP.

Developers not long ago did state founds are assured, but the events in past days don't look to good. What sucks is the communication, there is next to none. Still, I don't think there will be an immediate cancelation, to much invested and done.

Hi - 1st time viewer here. This is pretty much spot on, I will just add that I think lack of launch cost also make the game less interesting. Too much focus on visuals, failure (forced wobble and explosions) and now ugly green men rather than making cool and interesting space creations.

Your point on corporate demands is odd, because wouldn’t everyone at the start of the project agree and understand how much time/man hours it was going to cost to develop. It’s as though they started work not knowing what they were getting into, or what it was going to take to complete; not professional at all.

I wonder how long till this self destructive behavior catches up to the big studios. You can only cancel so many projects before you stop making games entirely. Games cost money to make, and they usually give a profit in the long run. But quarterly greed makes long run projects unviable. Cut expenses now at the cost of future profits is lunacy. KSP 2 if given the chance to become the game promised would be profitable, and early access worked wonders for BG3. More people bought it once it came out of EA than anyone expexted, yet to criple a title still in development is unbeliveably sort sighted.

Totaly right. For all these reasons I estimated that KSP 2 was not in the right state, and I did not purchased it. And for themoment at the current state, added to the corporate mess, I wil certainly not.

When i saw the early release price I knew this was going to happen. Glad I made that choice.

7:45 yes it was intentional but man it wasn't the problem.... A simple marth error making Keirn atmo the same a jupoter as it has the same pressure as earth but much smaller... That was the main issue... No supersonic air craft worked for me because no sound barrier = brick wall you must punch though to get high speeds... Which tio fix the wobble I did just add more wings then ran into the too many parts bug then the rocket falls apart for no reason bug...

You'd get a lot right, especially about the authoritarian nature of the team.

No skin off my teeth, I decided I wasn't playing ksp 2 until they had all the bugs worked out.. I hope they can square up their company and make it work, as a player of the original Kerbal Space Program that has landed on every Celestial body I was looking forward to moving past the Kerbal system but not sure if that will happen now

Short answer, if KSP 2 had a good chunk of the content that KSP 1 had then I'm sure people would have been fine with that I was mostly disappointed because they made it seem they were going to allow mods on steam for the game. But no, we have to pay for the same thing twice or that was what seemed the case, now this game's future is uncertain at best.

If they'd at least sell their turd to someone competent and invested, but with all the business crap that has happened, I expect them to rather flush it out of spite, instead of admitting they mismanaged it to death and giving others a chance to save it. Businesses and politics are absolutely neccessary, but sadly they give room for psychopathic narcissists to advance without competence or good faith in their work and in my oppinion it's something most people can sense instinctively. You can't really tell why, but you know when there are too many red flags. That's why I'm not surprised either to hear this. The moment I started my 50€ game and it looked like something I should be payed to spend time on, I knew this would happen eventually. It felt like a petty scam from the start, both on us players, as well as the developers.

hey Tim! Didn't realize you had a KSP channel. After playing a considerable amount of RP-1, I just don't see the same love and care ever coming to KSP2. The devs have failed on their promises, and have failed to capture an active and loyal player base that will continue to support their game for years to come. KSP2 feels hollow with the plethora of missing features, it's honestly impressive how little has gotten done since "release".

Love KSP, had KSP2 on top of my wishlist from the first day the store page went up. Got it on launch, and only then did I learn about all the features that were cut and slated for "later" like multiplayer, announched just a week or so before. Wasn't even able to play the game on launch, because it kept crashing, on the beefiest hardware achiveable at the time. It was so obviously clear that their focus was on visuals, which just isnt going to work for physics simulated space exploration game, you NEED a solid game underneath all the makeup. You dont see good code, you experience it, but CEO's don't want to understand code and just look at the flashy flashies and go "cool!" It was so painfully obvious that this was going to be the "result" from the get go, that I immediately refunded my dream game. Another thing ruined by middlemanagement and beancounters, text-fucking-book

I didnt know tim played ksp too lol

I feel something is not right when I test the game, I ramburs the game after 10 minutes of playng... and I play ksp 1 a lot. Now my feelings are right.

This is exactly why I don’t do early access anymore.

I wanted to play the game they promised with KSP2 but when it came out for 50 bucks with less functionality than KSP1 there was no way I was getting it. I have been watching its development (very slow) since waiting to buy the full game but alas. it may be that day never comes.

I agree with everything here- great video!

This is what’s finally killed my support of Early Access for good. If I could refund for a penny I’d do it in so pissed off.

Unfortunate. Been waiting for it to get good, as the EA was just not up to par.

Since when did you have a KSP channel? I thought you only made war thunder videos

To add to your rant, keep in mind that the trailer had nothing to do with the game engine that ended up being used. It was beautiful but misleading, well, without really being misleading because there was a tiny "Not Actual Gameplay" disclaimer at the start of it. People let themselves fall into too much hype from the start...

I'm so glad a said "nah" to KSP2.