It looks like Kerbal Space Program 2 won’t be seeing liftoff anytime soon. After announcing a delay earlier this year to Fall of 2021, Intercept Games has just come out and said that now the Kerbal Space Program sequel won’t be coming out until sometime in 2022.
Last time, it was due to COVID-19. Intercept Games let everyone know that their transition to work from home wasn’t going quite as smoothly as they would have liked, and that resulted in delays. "With everything going on in the world today due to the COVID-19 outbreak,” Intercept Games had said, “we're facing many unique challenges that require more time to safely iterate, create, test, and make KSP2 as great as it can be.”
Apparently, those challenges have proved to be insurmountable and might have even gotten bigger since last we heard from them. A new update from creative director Nate Simpson now says that Kerbal Space Program 2 isn’t coming out until 2022.
"We knew we were taking on an immense technical and creative challenge when we started this project," Simpson wrote in his forum post. "We’ve heard time and again from this community that quality is paramount, and we feel the same way."
Intercept Games will continue to post updates and offer "feature videos and developer diaries that go more in-depth on specific areas of the game." Expect a development diary and a feature video to arrive later this winter.
To already announce a year-long delay in May and then push the game back another year just six months later speaks to significant troubles within the developer. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier noted that Intercept Games only recently took over development of Kerbal Space Program 2 from Star Theory Games after publisher Take-Two Interactive pulled the game and pushed the small indie company into bankruptcy. But not without poaching a third of Star Theory’s staff, including the studio head and game director.
There are some seriously heinous corporate shenanigans behind that move, and we encourage you to read all about it. In the meantime, don’t expect Kerbal Space Program 2 to be on anyone’s radar for a while.
Source: Intercept Games, Bloomberg