DayZ creator announces a new space sim to take on Kerbal Space Program

Kerbal Space Program 2 screenshot with Space is Hard text on top — Kerbal Space Program 2

Dean Hall, the mind behind the game that kicked off the whole hardcore survival craze, DayZ, now has his sights on another frontier: space flight sims. The project looks to be a spiritual successor to Kerbal Space Program, though it's called a "KSP killer" by Hall himself, and it's in very early stages of development. It's got the name KSA attached to it, which stands for Kitten Space Agency, at least for now.

Hall reveals on a Reddit post (via RPS) that his studio RocketWerkz was in the running to develop Kerbal Space Program 2. However, after proposing the project with a document that was "entirely on the design and the technical aspects" without including any art, IP owner Private Division decided to go with another team.

Meanwhile, Kerbal Space Program 2's fate is currently in limbo as its current developer, Intercept Games has been shut down, and its publishing label, Private Division, may not last much longer.

"We have employed some of the original KSP and KSP2 team and a number of modders and expect the team to continue to grow," adds Hall. "The original crew are providing a lot of assistance and we are bringing technology, production, and approach from our own work."

Alongside a lot of technical information about the BRUTAL framework the studio is building in-house to power the game, which is described as "complicated, slow, and difficult to use," he also showed off a prototype of KSA, embedded below:

Giving modders free rein seems to be a big focus right from the start too, with Hall saying:

The game is being designed and built from the ground up with modding, performance, and scalability in mind. The core data of the game is loaded as a mod allowing everything in the game to be modded.

According to the developer, RocketWerkz's first release of KSA will be free of charge so that the space sim community can try out the project and see the progress themselves. "We will make plenty of mistakes I am sure. The key we hope to make is not mistakes around pillars that lead to project failure. Its a challenging project," adds Hall. This first launch version currently has a hopeful mid-2025 target.