Kerbal Space Program 2 Early Access Review

If you’re old enough to remember just before Steam allowed many early access titles on the storefront (opening the floodgates), Kerbal Space Program was one of the first great successes that led to the swell (or swill) of early access games we see today. Of course, this was also in part due to Don’t Starve, Subnautica, Besiege, Darkest Dungeon, The Long Dark, and of course, Prison Architect too. The explosive little green marks on the Mun and other planetary bodies have been a staple of PC players’ lives for the past decade.

Following Take-Two Interactive’s purchase of the original title and the company’s publishing division Private Division publishing both the original and its sequel, there is a slight change in philosophy. As a result, Seattle-based developer Intercept Games (originally in development by Planetary Annihilation dev Star Theory), and Kerbal Space Program 2 had a lot to live up to from the moment it was announced. What possibly didn’t help was the initial trailers and other promotional material noting the scope of the eventual release: Large scale planetary colonization, multiplayer, and interstellar travel.

The early access release of the new title has come and gone rather quickly, and it certainly hit something but I think calling it a hit might be an overstatement. Crashing into Steam early access on the 24th of February, Kerbal Space Program 2 comes in asking for possibly too much for how little you’ll see at this very moment. Priced similarly to a full medium-budget release you’ll get most of what the original title already has with two main additions upon launch. To call this initial countdown to full release a fiery explosion might be an understatement of exactly where KSP 2 stands.

Avoiding the larger discourse to maintain my own opinion, I think I can guess where a majority of complaints come from fans and early reviews alike. The performance alone is something that I know will continue to be an issue for a time. Playing as if it were single-threaded, the performance chugs even while doing the most basic things. I say this knowing Kerbal Space Program has never been entirely about performance. However, when on basic menus and getting 40-ish frames per second on hardware that far exceed the game’s recommendation for system requirements, something is wrong.

Under specific circumstances, (excluding launches of something ridiculous) you can even drop the frame rate down to 15 as a staggering low point. Where the early access release of Kerbal Space Program 2 is supposed to be a great improvement upon the original release, it is not. In fact, the full release of KSP (1) is far more stable than its sequel and will continue to be for a long while. Requiring an RTX 2080 as minimum and 3080 as recommended (though a 4090 might be a better suggestion), there is a chance those on limited budgets and lower-end PCs won’t be able to enjoy KSP 2 fully for a while.

That said, graphically speaking, Kerbal Space Program 2 on its highest setting doesn’t look like it is going to upset your graphics card. The level of detail on Kerbin isn’t much beyond the original game. If there is any graphical uplift, it must be the ship/boat components possibly compensating for the three idiots that think 4K gaming is worth the expense. Though if you’re looking to enable some level of anti-aliasing, you will be out of luck. Even at the highest setting, there are more jagged edges on textures outside of your abominations to physics than in 90s RPGs.

Gameplay-wise, right now we’re doing exactly the same as before while the deep space exploration, colony creations, and multiplayer are non-existent. Though if we’re honest, the new UI and UX are nothing short of awful. The dark navigation ball being moved to the lower left side of the screen with a more significant focus on minimalism while trying to convey thousands of data points that make the aerospace flight possible doesn’t work and it is ugly. Functionally it gets some of the job done, but in practice, it is difficult to say I feel fully in control and that I’m able to make decisions in mid-flight properly.

It also doesn’t help how big and bold it is. The UI in the Vehicle Assembly Building is annoyingly large when trying to construct anything more complex than the Jumping Flea. However, instead of two separate buildings for space planes and rockets, you can flip orientation. There are some great improvements in that regard, such as being able to view your build on a flat plane to introduce great detail, but the reality is that there isn’t much detail most people would put into the construction of their manned fireworks. I think it would be easier if you were given UI scaling in the options, but you aren’t.

The building of your spacecraft is fairly similar. Click the LEGO pieces together to ruin the life of the family of a well-respected little green man, possibly named Marvin. It was interesting (or sometimes frustrating) finding typical components for your builds, such as the clamps for your more “unstable” launches. With there being a slight change to the visual style, glancing over the composite elements that make up your ship isn’t easy. With the new style, painting your big phallic boom boom stick so you know which direction is up after you’ve taken the blue pill makes some things hard to identify.

This isn’t the only addition to the VAB that wasn’t common in the original release, as you can now modify select wings or control surface elements. You can adjust the length, width, and angle of things to make the dumbest and least aerodynamic aerofoil you’ve ever thought of. Although this offers more design choices than before to create monstrosities that defy every law of physics, they aren’t the most stable choice when looking at your options. More often than not the wings will snap off anything significant you try to create despite being supported by wheels, struts, and otherwise.

To properly fly your small (70-ton) attempt to recreate the AV-8B Harrier II through that thick air you and I inhale daily, you need a stable aero profile. That isn’t available with your more specialized parts. You can go into the options to disable your lawn dart from embarrassingly snapping in two like a cartoon, though. I’ve seen jets that fly “too fast” and crumple into dust, though it is difficult to say when your re-creation of the Aérospatiale is going as Flight Simulator enjoys shouting “over speed.” How you’re supposed to know if and when your new design that you spent an hour on will work is a mystery.

There is one welcome addition that greatly improves the starting experience for anyone just getting into the series. The new tutorials are carefully crafted to create a far better experience that could either give new players the start they need or help returning players that need a jump start on their memory. Despite being only a handful of guided situations that you’ll regularly find yourself in, the overall experience of them is more for accessibility than mastery. They predictably play out like a children’s TV presenter (not one from the 70s) telling you how to tie your shoelaces, which is frustrating when it bugs out.

Numerous times when doing the multi-stage rocketry tutorial, I had multiple sections decouple breaking the lesson and resetting me back to the launch. It doesn’t take long to recover from that point, as the tutorials are only a minute or two in length and all of them can be completed in about 20-30 minutes at a push. Nevertheless, it is aggravating to know what you are doing in that segment, understanding it, and executing it, only to continue to be held back because apparently hitting the spacebar once to decouple excess weight is triggering multiple stages.

There are definitely flaws that are present throughout Kerbal Space Program 2, such as the unstable builds, the unstable performance, the overall lack of what you could be expected following the trailers, and generally the flatness of excitement. With that said, right now there is enough to keep the attention of some older fans that can push through some issues with a Kerbal Space Program in its early stages, whereas those expecting something more than the original will be disappointed. The simple fact is that the current state of Kerbal Space Program 2 feels like it is doing nothing new.

Being in early access, it could change significantly in 6-12 months, but that isn’t what I’m reviewing right now. There is a road map noting what will be added that is displayed on the Steam page, but there is no timeline for when those five already announced additions will come. With layoffs hanging over the publisher and developer’s parent company, with action to developers being “minimal,” I wouldn’t be surprised to know there is a cut or two from Intercept Games. It also wouldn’t surprise me to find out that the focus will be on getting a large update out, which might take a while.

The only addition that is great for accessibility beyond a basic tutorial is the projection for how well your current build will do at achieving your target. In the VAB you can open a small menu that will tell you if your current fuel load and weight can hit the bullseye by creating another crater on the Mun. The trouble with that is what was mentioned in the message that we received alongside the key for Kerbal Space Program 2. It doesn’t work. There is a bug where it doesn’t quite calculate the parameters correctly or something, making the feature in the current build I’m reviewing utterly useless.

Ultimately, in the current state of Kerbal Space Program 2, you can actively do all you’ve done before but not much else. With the current state of performance and lack of additional features or a total graphical overhaul to the original, there is very little I think that will excite many players, myself included. Seemingly you can make slightly bigger liquid engine-based ship, but where are you going to go? The heart of the sun? One day somewhere else, but that’s the thing, everything that got anyone excited for KSP 2 will only come “one day.”

A PC review copy of Kerbal Space Program 2 was provided by Private Division for the purposes of this review.