Squad’s Kerbal Space Program is perhaps one of the most successful games to adopt Steam’s Early Access program, and to that end the developer has announced that their popular space simulator is ready to leave Early Access as a fully legitimate release.
Kerbal Space Program’s official launch will be on April 27, and among the new features to be introduced to version 1.0 are female Kerbals, realistic drag and lift, a proper game over screen, and an Engineer’s Report that will inform players of potentially catastrophic design choices on their space craft.
The game has been in development since 2011, and entered its Early Access phase on March 2013. Many gamers responded favorably to its uncommonly realistic depiction of physics and space travel, with members of NASA and Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk speaking favorably about it. NASA in particular collaborated with Squad to work on an add-on mission for the game, titled Asteroid Redirect, which was based on a real-life effort to send astronauts into space to study asteroids.
In the days leading up to Kerbal‘s official launch, Squad are putting out daily videos featuring some of the new features to come: