Kerbal Space Program is getting its first ever expansion, called Making History

Kerbal Space Program has been around for a long time in one form or another. It was first playable in mid-2011, and spent two years on Steam Early Access before launching in 2015. It was clearly time well spent—you don't get a 96/100 review score for half-assing it—but despite the brilliantly strong launch, we really haven't heard much about it since.

Today, however, Squad delivered some pretty big news with the announcement of the first KSP expansion, Making History. It includes two distinct components: The Mission Builder, a set of "intuitive drag-and-drop" tools that will let players design and share their own missions, and the History Pack, a series of pre-made missions that will recreate historical, real-life missions into space.

The expansion will also add new parts to the game, including fuel tanks, adapters, decouplers, fairings, and command pods inspired by the American and Soviet space programs, and also Kerbal Personal Parachutes, which can save a Kerbal's life as long as they don't try to use it in the cold void of space. It will also bring scoring to the game, giving players a way to compare their performances at the end of missions.

Pricing and a release date will be announced later, but Squad confirmed in a separate post that it is standing by its April 2013 promise that all updates and expansions—including this one—will be free for people who bought the game prior to the end of that month.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.