Kerbonauts, we’re excited to announce that Kerbal Space Program 2 will be releasing in Early Access on February 24th, 2023, for an Early Access price of $49.99. The game will be available on PC only during Early Access, on the KSP website, Steam and Epic Games Store. Check out the in-depth Feature Video on the announcement here https://youtu.be/XAL3XaP-LyE.
Kerbal Space Program 2 has been fully redesigned from the ground up to meet the demands of modern and next-generation space exploration
Speaking as an indie dev - While I can't literally show you, multiplayer is one of those critical foundational things, and likely why the whole thing took so long to get to just this state. To put it simply, if multiplayer foundations were not already implemented, then they would never be implemented. Its not the sort of thing you can just hammer down in at the end of development. Either its in there, or they're blatantly lying to our face through their teeth.
As for why its not on day one,