Kerbal Space Program 2 rocky launch leaves players asking for refunds

Kerbal Space Program 2 released in early access last week, but has left players feeling like it needed longer on the launchpad.

Current Steam reviews for the space-flight simulator are decidedly mixed, with many users lamenting the game’s buggy state.

“Barely playable, feel like they should be paying me to play it at this point in development,” wrote one user, with another adding the game is “broken in almost every way possible”. Meanwhile, others have stated they have asked for refunds, and advise those interested in Kerbal Space Program to play the original instead.

Last week, Kerbal Space Program community lead Michael Loreno shared a blog post addressing some of the “concerns” that had been circulating regarding “KSP 2 performance and min spec.” Here, Loreno stated Kerbal Space Program 2 is “undergoing continuous optimisation, and performance will improve over the course of Early Access”.

Additionally, Loreno explained the Kerbal Space Program 2 team believe the game is “fun and full-featured enough to share with the public” but that everyone involved is “entering Early Access with the expectation that the community understands that this is a game in active development”.

“That means that some features may be present in non-optimised forms in order to unblock other features or areas of gameplay that we want people to be able to experience today,” Loreno wrote.

Not that it is all bad news. Several users have noted that the UI and onboarding process for Kerbal Space Program 2 is a big step up from its predecessor.

“These improvements make the game much more accessible, and once the game is optimised, it will undoubtedly be much smoother,” one reviewer stated.

“The changes are impressive, and it’s clear that the developers have put a lot of thought into them… Overall, if you’re interested in KSP 2, I would recommend buying it only if you intend to provide feedback and help the developers test the game. Otherwise, it might be best to wait until the game is fully released.”

Meanwhile, the Kerbal Space Program 2 developers have a roadmap laid out for the game that will see more features added to the sequel that were missing from the first. This includes multiplayer and the addition of colonies.

I had some hands on time with Kerbal Space Program 2 ahead of release, you can read more about my impressions here.