Kerbal Space Program fans react with anger over Intercept Games closure, and you know what that means: Review bombing on Steam

Kerbal Space Program 2 players are responding to the reported closure of developer Intercept Games with what has become something of a time-honored tradition among gamers: A flood of negative reviews on Steam.

Reports of layoffs at Intercept came to light on May 1 via a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice (WARN) indicating that 70 people at Take-Two Interactive's office in Seattle were being put out of work. The notice indicated the action wasn't merely a staffing cut but a closure, which was effectively confirmed later in the day by a Bloomberg report saying that both Intercept Games and Roll7, the acclaimed developer of OlliOlli World and Rollerdrome, were being shuttered as part of a cost-cutting plan being implemented by Take-Two.

There's been no official announcement about the closure from Take-Two or Intercept at this point, although a statement from Take-Two indicated that the Private Division publishing label, rather than Intercept, «continues to make updates to the game.» Following the Bloomberg report, the Kerbal 2 Twitter account posted a cryptic message: «We're still hard at work on KSP2. We'll talk more when we can.»

The presumed intent of the message—essentially a request for patience and understanding as an ugly situation unfolds—does not seem to have carried through with the Kerbal community. More than 250 negative reviews have been posted to Steam since the report of the closure less than 24 hours ago, most of them warning against the purchase of the game because of the looming elimination of the development team. 

Even the very few positive reviews posted over the same period are clearly leaning heavily on optimism: One expressed hope that modders will be able to carry one with development, while another said «it feels a little delusional» to believe that the game has any sort of future.

The number of new negative reviews represents a relatively tiny portion of the whole: Kerbal 2 currently has more than 18,000 user reviews on Steam, so the