Bold words, Take-Two. Bold words.
I mean, KSP2 was not very well received like the first one. So I can see why Take-Two might do this.
It was a scam. They rreskinned the old engine while promising a from-scratch game.
Yes-ish. Updated graphics/reskin was the original idea, but this changed to add some long-wanted features. This is where the problem began: The reskin was built on the old KSP source base, which the original developers have admitted was very difficult to work with.
When the development changed focus, the feature scope was simply not realistic with so much legacy code getting in the way.
Worst of all, the devs working on KSP2 were barred from talking to Squad (the original developers) about ANYTHING. No communication about specific parts of the code. No communication about why various approaches to different problems were chosen. Basically due to corporate stupidity that focused on a quick buck through a resin, the developers had to pretty much reinvent the wheel a bunch of times.
I think the initial corporate plan was a reskin-scam. The development plan involved a lot more than that. These goals were simply incompatible, which is why everything was so delayed and buggy.
There were some really passionate and talented devs on the team, but they didn’t get what was needed to build what KSP2 could’ve (and should’ve) been.
ShadowZone made a couple of really good in-depth videos on what went wrong, and this sums it up well: https://youtu.be/NtMA594am4M
You can get the same ksp2 experience with ksp1 and the seemingly infinite amount of mods available.
Want more realistic everything? Mods for that.
Want to make a jumbo jet that can also travel to Ike?there’s Mods for that.
Want everything to be reskinned to look different? You better BELIEVE there’s mods for that.
And the best part is if you own ksp1 (or at least if you have it on your computer to play, wink wink) it’s free! No need to pay for a full game that’s just been modified slightly, now you just slightly modify it yourself. (or mod it so heavily that startup takes 20 minutes and if you don’t use the part search function you’ll be scrolling for hours)
The main reason why I wanted KSP2 was because of the colony-system. I would love to have a more vanilla experience of building colonies which can build rockets - too many times have I tried it with modded KSP only to see my colony spontaneously disassemble after crashing into terrain upon being within physics range.
Wasn’t all of KSP2’s shortcomings due to corporate meddling though?
Pretty much
Ksp2 was not an interactive piece of software when released, exclusively due to lack of funding and a lack of expertise caused by take twos decisions.
If they actually understood the product and understood what it would take to be produced, they would’ve had a game that the entirety of the ksp community would have bought. Instead they spent more on marketing and sound design than engine work.
Rocketwerkz has been working on a similar ksp game for a while.
They are also incredibly transparent on the discord. Feel free to join it if you want more information about the game and chat with the devs
Care to share a discord link?
