The original creator of PC smash hit Kerbal Space Program Felipe "HarvesteR" Falanghe says that he was taken by surprise when a sequel was announced earlier this year.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Falanghe said that he had no idea a follow-up was in the works following developer Squad's sale to Grand Theft Auto publishing giant Take-Two Interactive. He departed the studio in 2016 ahead of this 2017 acquisition.

Kerbal Space Program 2 isn't being developed by Squad, however, with Bellevue, Washington studio Star Theory Games taking up the reigns for the sequel. Take-Two's Private Division label is publishing the title. 

"It was a bit of a roller coaster ride of feelings [when KSP 2 was announced]," Falanghe said.

"At first I was, like, a bit surprised and my first reaction was 'oh, Squad is making KSP 2', and then I saw that it wasn't, they had actually handed it off to another developer. So that was doubly surprising.

He continued: "I knew that they had sold the IP to Take-Two, and I knew that they were still working updates and expansion packs so I thought that was the status more or less of the entire thing. I didn't imagine that when I saw this video, it's clear that they've been working on it for a while now, so what I think surprised me most was that it looks like they've been working on it for a couple of years at least and I had no idea. It made me wonder even if the people at Squad themselves knew, I really don't know. It was a mix of feelings and I went over multiple opinions of it I think, in a very short space of time."