A brand-new Space Age is starting, and the whole world is watching as NASA’s brave Artemis II crew explores the surface of the Moon. While the four-person crew explores real space, gamers are jumping back into Kerbal Space Program yet again to try their own hands at space travel.
Alongside the new relaunch of Bethesda’s Starfield, which isn’t as game-changing as some would assume, Kerbal Space Program player counts are shooting off with the game seeing its higher concurrent player counts on Steam in a decade.
Via the ever-trusty Steam Charts, the spaceship simulator has managed to find a resurgence as players feel the call to explore space. With a peak concurrent player count of 11,891 players, this is the highest player count the game has seen since it released its 1.0 update back in 2015.
This resurgence in player count has also hit the often-maligned second game, the aptly named Kerbal Space Program 2. However, while the game has seen a significant rise in player count, it’s only a peak of 325 players, around 2.7% the player count of its predecessor.
Unfortunately, it seems that Kerbal Space Program is the only game series seeing a major jump in player count alongside the launch of Artemis II. While KSP is seeing a rather stark jump in active players, other space games – such as Elite Dangerous or No Man’s Sky – have not seen the same meteoric rise in popularity.
While the rise in players for the spaceship builder is seemingly linked to NASA’s rocket launch, it’s not the only reason. Alongside the real-world exploration into the beyond, players have also been inspired by the release of Project Hail Mary, the new sci-fi film by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.
Whatever the case, there is a real hunger for space travel and exploration right now, and it almost feels like there’s a resurgence for space content right now. While there are a lot of space games out there, Kerbal Space Program is almost entirely unique, and even its sequel doesn’t quite scratch the same itch.
