Kerbal Space Program 2, the hotly anticipated sequel to the popular space faring sim has faced yet another delay, this time pushing it back to early 2023 for PC, and sometime later in the year for console players. This is the fourth delay, and means the game will now be released about three years after its ambitious 2020 initial release date.
This delay was spotted by Eurogamer, which saw an update from the Kerbal team on their forum page. Nate Simpson, the creative director, announced, "We have made the difficult decision to move the release date of KSP 2, which will now launch in early 2023 on PC with our console release later that year."
The game was delayed due to the impact of Covid-19 and pushed back to autumn 2021. It was then pushed back to this year. Development on the original Kerbal Space Program has officially ceased, too, hopefully meaning the developers can focus their attention on the sequel.
Simpson assures patient fans, "We are building a game of tremendous technological complexity, and are taking this additional time to ensure we hit the quality and level of polish it deserves. We remain focused on making sure KSP2 performs well on a variety of hardware, has amazing graphics, and is rich with content."
This is just the latest in a long line of video game delays. In the last week alone we've had news of GTA Definitive Edition Mobile, Dying Light 2's story DLC, and Starfield and Redfall being delayed into the first half of 2023.
These delays highlight a growing problem: modern game development is unsustainable. As graphics improve and hardware gets more complicated, games take more time and resources to make. Pretty soon we may need to accept more double-A releases, or video game marketing shouldn't announce launch dates so far in advance.
In any case, hopefully, this is the last time Kerbal Space Program 2 gets pushed back. It's being designed with new players in mind, and this extra dev time should give the team behind it the opportunity to fulfill their vision.