The Kerbal Space Program2 player is something that has become something of an age-old tradition among gamers, responding to the reported closure of the developer Intercept game.

Reports of layoffs at the Intercept came to light on May 1 via a Worker Coordination and retraining Notice (WARN) showing that 70 people had been put out of work at Take-Two Interactive's office in Seattle. The notice shows that the measure is not just a job cut, but a closure, and a Bloomberg report states that both Intercept Games and Roll7, the acclaimed developer of OlliOlli World and Rollerdrome, had been closed as part of a cost-cutting plan being implemented by Take-Two.

There was no official announcement about the closure from Take-Two or Intercept at this point, but a statement from Take-Two said that Private Division publishing label, not Intercept, "continues to update the game."Following the Bloomberg report, Kerbal2's Twitter account posted a cryptic message: "We are still struggling with ksp2's work. Let's talk more when we can."

The presumed intent of the message — essentially a demand for patience and understanding as the ugly situation unfolds — does not seem to be carried along with the Kerbal community. More than 250 negative reviews have been posted on Steam since reports of the closure less than 24 hours ago, most of them against game purchases due to the looming elimination of the development team.

Even a very small number of positive reviews posted over the same period have clearly leaned heavily on optimism: one is that modders can carry development and one 9]

The number of new negative reviews represents a relatively small part of the whole: Kerbal2 currently has more than 18,000 user reviews on Steam, so the "mostly negative" influx isn't really moving the needle overall. 

However, the rating was not great from the start. Fans have been frustrated by the state of the game at launch, which was plagued by bugs and missing many of the features present in the first game, and since then they have been particularly impressed by this of the update, which has resulted in only 56% positive user reviews in total and is especially noteworthy in light of how widely loved the original Kerbal Space Program is. It is a number that you can count.

We shared similar thoughts in our own assessment of the early access launch, which showed great potential, but said it was "not offered for anyone but avid kerbonauts."Multiple updates have been implemented since then, including "Big for Science"."The update saw a surge in player and positive user reviews, but it's understandable that these pre-

Kerbal fans have doubts about the future of KSP2, as the community largely chose to stick to the original. The game was announced in 2019 by a new developer, Star Theory Games — the first game was created by Squad — but in less than 1 year it will be taken over by a new studio and become Intercept Games, founded under Take-Two's private Division publishing label, and the Star Theory team will continue to work on the game. Many "key members" of the system have relocated. While the intercept was intended to "focus on the ongoing development of KSP," the private department added that "bringing the development in-house can provide the development team with the time and resources needed to complete the development of ksp2." "

Given that the raison d'être of the intercept is the Kerbal Space Program2, axing the studio rightly raises concerns about the future of the game itself, and questions further weighted by Take-Two's plans include cutting 5% of the total workforce and eliminating "several projects in development." The goal is to "streamline the pipeline." Take-Two's end-of-2024 financial report and investors call (which tends to be interesting) are scheduled for 5/16.