Feedback Regarding Multiplayer Priority and Technical Concerns in Space Engineers 2

Hello Keen Software House team,

first of all, I want to make clear that this feedback is not meant as hate toward Space Engineers 2. I genuinely want the game to succeed. Space Engineers is a very special kind of game, and there are very few games that offer a comparable level of creative freedom, engineering possibilities, large-scale construction, and player-driven experimentation.

That is exactly why I care enough to write this feedback in detail.

My main concern is the current absence of multiplayer and, more specifically, how multiplayer appears to be positioned in the development process.

I understand that Space Engineers 2 is in Early Access. I also understand that complex systems take time to build, especially in a physics-heavy sandbox game. Bugs, missing systems, unfinished mechanics, and limited content are expected in Early Access to some degree.

However, I do not think Early Access should automatically be treated as a free pass for a game to be missing what many players consider one of its core features. For me, and I believe for many others, multiplayer is not just an optional extra in Space Engineers. It is one of the main reasons the game is fun in the first place.

Building ships, creating stations, testing designs, surviving, experimenting with engineering ideas, solving problems, and creating large-scale projects together with friends or communities is a huge part of what makes Space Engineers special. Without multiplayer, the game feels incomplete and much less appealing as a player-facing product.

I can understand the development argument for building the foundation first. It makes sense to create the world systems, block behavior, physics, survival mechanics, progression, tools, UI, and gameplay loop before exposing everything to multiplayer testing. Multiplayer adds a lot of complexity. If the underlying systems are changing constantly, multiplayer can slow development down and create a lot of extra work.

So from that perspective, I do understand why the team might want to stabilize the core systems first.

But I also think there is a valid technical argument in the opposite direction, especially for a game like Space Engineers.

Space Engineers is not a simple single-player game where multiplayer can be added later as a relatively separate layer. It is a physics-heavy sandbox game where almost every system can be affected by multiplayer. Multiplayer is deeply connected to grid simulation, block interaction, physics replication, damage handling, ownership, welding and grinding, inventory systems, player movement, ship control, collisions, programmable or automated systems, server persistence, save consistency, and long-running worlds.

Because of that, my concern is that if too many systems are designed, tested, benchmarked, and optimized mainly around single-player first, multiplayer may later become something that has to be adapted onto an already mostly finished foundation instead of being part of that foundation from the beginning.

Of course, I do not know your internal architecture. I am not claiming that multiplayer is being ignored or that it will simply be “thrown in” at the end. But from the outside, this is the concern: that the game may be developed and validated primarily around single-player behavior, and only later will the truly difficult multiplayer problems become visible.

In a game like Space Engineers, multiplayer should not feel like a lid placed on top of the finished game. It should shape how the game is built from the start.

Space Engineers 1 already showed how difficult multiplayer can be in this type of game. Many players remember lag, desync, physics issues, server performance problems, and long-running servers becoming worse over time once enough players, ships, stations, grids, scripts, and moving parts were involved. Even with good server hardware, multiplayer often did not feel fully smooth or stable.

That is one of my biggest worries for Space Engineers 2.

If the game first builds and optimizes its core systems mainly for single-player, there is a risk that multiplayer may later suffer from similar structural problems again. Not because the developers are careless, but because retrofitting multiplayer into complex systems is often much harder than designing those systems around multiplayer requirements from the beginning.

For example, a physics or block interaction system can work perfectly in single-player because there is only one authoritative simulation. But in multiplayer, the same system has to deal with synchronization, latency, prediction, correction, authority, replication frequency, bandwidth limits, server load, and conflicts between multiple players interacting with the same objects at the same time.

A grid system may be fine in single-player when only one local simulation needs to track it, but in multiplayer it has to remain consistent across clients and the server. A collision or damage system may be acceptable locally, but become much more complicated when several players are nearby, controlling ships, welding blocks, grinding blocks, crashing into structures, or interacting with dynamic objects at the same time.

The same applies to performance. A feature can appear efficient in single-player benchmarks, but behave very differently on a persistent multiplayer server with multiple active players, many grids, many inventories, many physics objects, and a world that keeps evolving over time. The bottlenecks are not always visible when the system is tested mainly from a single-player perspective.

That is why I think multiplayer should be treated less like a later milestone and more like a fundamental design requirement for almost every major system.

To be clear, I am not saying multiplayer should be rushed out in a broken state. I am not asking for an unstable public multiplayer mode tomorrow just for the sake of having it. I would rather have a good multiplayer implementation than a rushed one.

My concern is more about priority and technical direction.

If multiplayer is one of the defining parts of the Space Engineers experience, then it should be tested, considered, and validated early enough that core systems can still be changed if needed. If multiplayer testing only comes after many systems are already considered mostly complete, then there may be less willingness or flexibility to reopen those systems deeply, even if multiplayer reveals that they need major architectural changes.

From a player perspective, this also affects the current value of the game. Right now, Space Engineers 2 may have potential, but potential alone is not enough for many regular players. Without multiplayer and with many core gameplay systems still missing or limited, the game currently feels too unfinished to recommend unless someone specifically wants to support development or test the technical foundation.

That is not meant as an insult. It is simply how the game feels from the outside right now.

I like Space Engineers. I want Space Engineers 2 to become the better, more modern, more stable, and more capable successor that many of us hoped for. But I am worried that if multiplayer comes too late in the process, the game could end up repeating some of the same problems that made Space Engineers 1 multiplayer difficult for many communities and servers.

For a game built around creativity, engineering, large constructions, shared worlds, and community projects, multiplayer is not just another feature on a checklist. It is one of the systems that gives the entire game long-term life.

So my feedback is this:

Please treat multiplayer as a core foundation of Space Engineers 2, not merely as a later feature to be added once the single-player foundation is complete. Even if public multiplayer testing still needs time, I believe the major systems should be designed and validated with multiplayer requirements in mind as early as possible.

I fully understand that development is difficult and that multiplayer in a physics-heavy sandbox is especially challenging. But because it is so challenging, I believe it deserves early and central attention.

Thank you for reading. I genuinely hope Space Engineers 2 succeeds, because the concept is still unique, and the potential is absolutely there. My criticism comes from wanting the game to become something great, not from wanting it to fail.