Kerbal Space Program 2 – Review

If you’re of a certain age, you might recall that Kerbal Space Program was one of the first big successes that opened the floodgates on Steam and led to the current wave (or swill) of early access games. Don’t Starve, Subnautica, Besiege, Darkest Dungeon, The Long Dark, and Prison Architect all had a role. During the past decade, PC gamers have relied on the explosive small green marks on the Mun and other planetary bodies.

The publisher’s ethos has shifted slightly after the first game’s acquisition by Take-Two Interactive and subsequent publication by Private Division. Since its announcement, Kerbal Space Program 2, created by Seattle-based studio Intercept Games (formerly by Planetary Annihilation studio Star Theory), has had lofty expectations to meet. The fact that early teasers and advertisements highlighted the game’s ambitious goals—including massive multiplayer online and intergalactic travel—may not have helped matters.

The new game’s early access period ended very fast, and while the game was well received, I think it would be stretching things to label it a smash hit. Kerbal Space Program 2 slams into Steam Early Access on February 24 asking for maybe too much for how little you’ll see right now. Upon launch, you’ll get most of what the original title currently has plus two big additions for the price of a complete medium-budget release. To say that the last days leading up to KSP 2’s release have been a blaze of activity would be an understatement.

I’ve been avoiding the wider conversation in order to preserve my own point of view, but I think I can estimate where the bulk of the concerns are coming from among fans and early reviews. It’s clear to me that the performance itself will be a problem for some time to come. The game performs slowly, as if it were only using one thread, even while executing simple tasks. This is despite the fact that I’m aware that performance was never the exclusive focus of Kerbal Space Program. If, however, even in the game’s most fundamental menus, you’re only getting around 40 fps while having hardware that well exceeds the game’s recommended system requirements, something is amiss.

In extreme cases (such as when launching an impossibly large object), the frame rate can be reduced to a jaw-dropping 15. While Kerbal Space Program 2’s early access release was meant to be a significant upgrade over the original game, it falls well short of expectations. As a matter of fact, KSP (1)’s final release is significantly more stable than KSP (2) and will remain so for quite some time. With the RTX 2080 as the bare least and the RTX 3080 as the recommended (though a 4090 could be a better idea), KSP 2 may be out of reach for people with lower-end PCs and tighter budgets for some time.

Yet, it appears that playing Kerbal Space Program 2 at the highest settings would not tax your graphics hardware. Kerbin doesn’t have a whole lot of more detail compared to the original game. The three dolts that believe 4K gaming is worthwhile are probably compensated for by the ship/boat components, if there is any graphical improvement at all. Yet, you’ll be out of luck if you want to use anti-aliasing in any form. Outside of your abominations to physics, there are more ragged edges on textures even at the maximum level, making the game look like an RPG from the 1990s.

While deep space travel, colony construction, and multiplayer are currently unavailable, gameplay is otherwise same from before. Yet, if we’re being totally forthright, the new user interface and user experience is terrible. While trying to depict the millions of data points that make aeronautical flight possible, the dark navigation ball being shifted to the lower left side of the screen in an effort to emphasise minimalism is both ineffective and aesthetically offensive. Although it accomplishes some of its intended purposes, I can’t confidently claim that I feel in complete command of the situation or that I can make the right choices while in flight.

The fact that it is so massive and brash doesn’t help, either. While attempting to assemble a vehicle more complex than a Jumping Flea, the Vehicle Assembly Building’s user interface becomes tediously cumbersome. You can alter the orientation of a single building to accommodate both rockets and spaceplanes. Even while there have been significant advancements in this area, such as the ability to observe your design on a flat plane in order to incorporate considerable detail, the truth is that most individuals wouldn’t put much attention into the construction of their manned fireworks. In my opinion, things would be simpler if you were given the choice to scale the user interface.

Your spaceship’s construction is comparable to that of others. Assemble the LEGO pieces and press the button to bring devastation upon the household of a well-respected small green man, possibly named Marvin. Finding common parts for your constructions, such the clamps for your more “unstable” launches, was interesting (or sometimes irritating). There has been a subtle shift in aesthetics, making it more difficult to quickly take in the composite parts that make up your ship at a glance. It’s hard to tell which way is up after taking the blue pill because of the new fashion trend of painting your large phallic boom boom stick.

Not only can you change specific wings or control surface pieces, but you can also do this in the VAB, which was not the case in the first release. The length, width, and angle can be altered to create the most inefficient aerofoil ever conceived of. While this does provide more freedom in design, allowing for the creation of monstrosities that violate every law of physics, they are not the most reliable alternative. No matter how well you try to support your creation with wheels, struts, or anything else, the wings will eventually break off.

Your 70-ton replica of the AV-8B Harrier II needs a solid aero profile in order to navigate the dense air that you and I breathe every day. You can’t get it with the specialist components you sell. Nevertheless, if you go into the settings, you can prevent your lawn dart from breaking in half like a cartoon character. I’ve seen planes go “too fast” and crumble to dust; however, it’s hard to tell how fast your Aérospatiale recreation is travelling, especially since Flight Simulator loves to yell “over speed.” It’s unclear how you’re expected to know if and when your new design, which you worked on for an hour, will be successful.

One addition has been made that is well appreciated and improves the initial experience for newcomers to the series. The new lessons have been meticulously developed to provide an exponentially better experience, one that may serve as a springboard for new players or jog the memory of seasoned veterans. There are just a few number of instances in which you will be given direction, and those situations are designed more for convenience than for in-depth learning. When they malfunction, they are as annoying as if a children’s TV host from the 1970s were showing you how to tie your shoelaces.

In the multi-stage rocketry course, I encountered several instances where numerous sections decoupled, interrupting the lesson and forcing me to restart at the launch. The tutorials are short, taking no more than a minute or two each, so even if you get behind, you won’t be out of commission for more than twenty or thirty minutes at most. Yet, it’s frustrating to know exactly what to do in that section, have a firm grasp on how to carry it out, and still be prevented from moving forward since, apparently, tapping the spacebar once to remove excess weight is activating numerous steps.

Kerbal Space Program 2 isn’t without its problems, such as its shaky constructions, shaky performances, general lack of what one could have imagined based on trailers, and general lack of enthusiasm. Yet, there is currently enough to hold the interest of some older fans who are willing to persevere through Kerbal Space Program’s growing pains, while those hoping for a significant improvement over the original will be left wanting. Really, in its current form, Kerbal Space Program 2 doesn’t feel like it’s adding anything new to the genre.

Due to its early access status, it is possible that significant changes will be made during the next 6-12 months; however, these changes are not the focus of my assessment. There is a roadmap showing what will be added displayed on Steam, but there is no date for when those five already mentioned things will happen. I wouldn’t be shocked if there were layoffs at Intercept Games, given the uncertainty surrounding the parent business of the publisher and developer and the “minimum” action taken towards developers. A major update is likely to be a priority, so it may be a while before we see anything new.

The prediction of how well your current build will do at accomplishing your aim is the one addition that is helpful for accessibility beyond a simple instruction. If you’re wondering whether or not your current fuel load and weight are sufficient to make another crater on the Mun, you can get this information under a little menu in the VAB. Unfortunately, that was the subject of the note that accompanied the Kerbal Space Program 2 key we received. It’s useless. It seems to have a fault where it doesn’t fully calculate the parameters correctly or something, rendering the feature in the version I’m testing completely worthless.

To sum up, in the current state of Kerbal Space Program 2, you can actively accomplish everything you could before but not much else. I don’t think many players, including myself, will be excited by the current state of performance, lack of new features, or absence of a complete visual overhaul of the original. It would appear that a ship powered by liquid engines can be made significantly larger, but to what end? The thing at the sun’s core? One day, maybe, but the truth is, everything that made people enthusiastic about KSP 2 will only come “one day.”