Nate Simpson here -- I'm the creative director for KSP2, and I've been following the passionate discussion taking place on this forum. There have been a couple of emerging narratives that I'd like to address here.
As some of you may know, I came into this role primarily because of my love for the original Kerbal Space Program. I go back to the .15 days, before EVA was even a thing. I remember when Jool was born, and I remember the first time I used the (all-new) NERV engines to get there. This was a game that scratched a creative itch that no other game ever had. For me, it started a life-long love affair with space technology, and enlarged my understanding of the real world. One of the many joys of this job is that I've gotten to meet, hang out with, and even work alongside the people at Squad who are making sure that KSP continues to be the greatest game of all time.
From the very first day that my co-developers and I got a chance to put together a proposal for this game, my main purpose has been to imagine and define what KSP2 could be. It's real kid-in-a-candy-store stuff, and I have no illusions that to get to all of it will take at least as long as the original game has been around.
But there were a few things that we had to get right from day one. Of course that included the big new features - colonies, interstellar, and multiplayer. Equally important was the need to enhance the first-time user experience, tutorials, and user interface to make the game easier to get into as a newcomer.
But as important as all the new stuff is, it's equally important for us to preserve the magic of the original game. Its sense of humor, its commitment to physical realism, its stealthy teaching of rocket science. Also, its flexibility to different styles of play, and its ability to appeal to players across a wide spectrum of interests and abilities. I hope that I'm doing a good job of advocating for all of these perspectives -- though it has often been helpful to get feedback from the community when we're exploring what does and doesn't work (yes, we know how you feel about the navball).
I say all this now because it sounds like some people are concerned that this project has changed -- either it's canceled (it's not) or it's going to be a freemium game with microtransactions (it's not), or it'll be debased in some way (it won't be). I want to make super clear that nothing from our original vision for this game has been altered in any way. And I want to be extra, super clear that we've never once gotten any pressure from the publisher or anyone else to change, add, or remove any feature from KSP2. I especially want to call out Michael Cook, our executive producer at Private Division, as somebody who has been supportive of us from day one and who I've seen get visibly giddy during conversations about Z-pinch fusion devices. He's one of us.
We're still working hard on this game. As usual, we have more stuff we want to show off in the coming weeks and months as we continue to bring new systems online. For most of us on this team, this is a dream come true -- a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work on something we truly love. That has not changed, and I hope it never changes.
Thanks for your patience and understanding. I look forward to playing this game with all of you.
Bingo!
