Kerbal Space Program has a new launcher, and players are worried that it threatens long-held save games.
Earlier this week, patch notes for Kerbal Space Program 1.12.4 dropped, announcing a new update set for November 2. In that update, the game's developers told players that "as we are dedicating our time and effort to launching KSP 2, future patches for KSP will be less prioritized." It's not quite a sunsetting, but it's certainly confirmation that focus is switching firmly in the direction of the upcoming sequel.
Confusingly, those patch notes seem to date from October 31, but they didn't appear on Steam until yesterday, where they also announce the arrival of a "new launcher for KSP on Steam." That launcher, which appears to have taken a number of players by surprise, is said to "serve as a resource for news and updates about KSP & KSP 2 Early Access," but the community doesn't seem impressed.
One player dubbed the move "anti-consumer" due to publisher Private Division pushing advertising on the community through a game they already own. Others complained about the tedious extra step of using Steam's launcher to open another, dedicated launcher. More still, however, are worried that the new update seems to have stopped them from playing games the way they want.
User Schnautzi claims that they're unable to launch in borderless fullscreen mode, while psywhale claims that Linux support has been broken by the change. On the Steam community forums, one player who says they've had their game locked to an older version to avoid bugs says today's update has also been pushed on their client, theoretically opening them up to the issues they'd been trying to dodge.
The community appears to have developed its own workarounds to avoid the launcher for now, but many solutions require backed up versions of previous patches, or entirely isolating Kerbal Space Program somewhere within your PC so Steam can't update it. Those are far from ideal options for most players, but there's no guarantee dodging the update will work in the longer term.
After multiple delays, Kerbal Space Program 2 is set to release into early access on February 24, 2023.
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