In early April, NASA and its Artemis II mission inspired humanity to look toward the heavens. Now that the four-person space crew has returned home, however, the public still hasn’t had its fill of space travel. At least, that seems to be the only thing that can explain why, in 2026, Kerbal Space Program has rocketed back up in popularity. It’s been a decade since the beloved flight simulation game originally released for PC.
Kerbal Space Program is an engineering management game that turns players into rocket scientists by letting them build and fly spaceships. Fans figure out how to reach space by tinkering with components based on hardware used by astronauts or by recreating historically significant missions. The name Kerbal comes from the small green aliens that players direct as they build aircraft and perform experiments. The space game is realistic enough that even people at NASA are big fans.
Kerbal Space Program is widely considered a classic; Polygon ranked it among the 100 best games of the decade. Critically, though, KSP has not received an update since 2023, when it got a small patch. What’s more, the series has a poorly received sequel, and the original developers sold the rights years ago. KSP is also not currently on sale at a discount. Despite having no immediately obvious reason to return to the game, Kerbal Space Program has spent the last few days topping the Steam sales charts.
