The big expansion for Factorio has been a topic of discussion before, but now there is concrete information and also a release date already.
Since Factorio was released in Early Access on Steam in 2016, interest in the tricky base-building game has increased rather than decreased. Today, over 10,000 players still work every day to escape the hostile alien planet Nauvis.
But soon it will go one step further: Namely, in about a year, a major expansion for Factorio will be released.
Finally take off
In a (blogposting on the Factorio website) the developers present their plans for the expansion in more detail. In Factorio: Space Age, our journey is to continue. We will then be allowed to explore several new planets after launching our rocket and travel through space on a space factory.
The addon was announced earlier, but now they reveal many exciting details:
- First you will have to send several rockets into space to build large platforms that you will then use to travel. These will be cheaper than the rocket in the main game, but you should still be prepared for a lot of work.
- You’ll visit a total of four predefined planets with the completed platform. Each of them has certain resources and offers new challenges and gameplay mechanics. You’ll have to decide in which order to explore the planets, which will have important strategic consequences.
- To avoid being too strong, some abilities and technologies already acquired in the main game will be unlocked later with the expansion.
- You can theoretically use your existing base to activate the expansion and then continue playing. However, the developers recommend a new save game.
- The expansion will be accompanied by the free update 2.0, which will bring many improvements to the expansion for all owners of the main game as well.
If you are thinking: Wait a minute, doesn’t this expansion already exist as a mod with the name (Space Exploration)?
, then the creator of the mod can reassure you. Earendel writes in the blog about the expansion that Space Age, which he also worked on, has other goals.
So, he says, the expansion is suitable for all Factorio players and aims to offer a shorter experience, with about 60 to 100 hours. Also, it would be much easier to add new features in the expansion that were not possible in the mod.
What do you think about the expansion for Factorio? Feel free to write it in the comments!
