After 13 years of development, over half a decade of post-release support, and one of the most incredible expansions ever made, Wube Software is preparing to call time on the development of Factorio.
In its latest Friday Facts blog, the Czech developer revealed that the coming 2.1 patch will be the game’s final significant update, with the studio switching to minor quality of life patches thereafter.
“We envision 2.1 as our last major update of Factorio, and we will shift the focus onto long term support. So things like bug fixes, platform support/compatibility, modding features, etc,” the studio wrote. “Other than that, we feel we’ve reached a good place to conclude the active gameplay development.”
I am honestly a little surprised. Like Dwarf Fortress or RimWorld, Factorio is one of those games that seems like it could just carry on development forever. To be clear, though, ‘surprised’ does not mean ‘disappointed’. The original game was already a preposterously vast, life-consumingly complex game, assembling one of my favourite PC gaming experiences when I reviewed it back in 2020.
Then, four years later, came Factorio: Space Age, an expansion that exploded the game’s scope in even more ludicrous fashion. Not only did it involve building a space factory on top of your existing factory, but you also then took that space factory to four other planets that offered totally different factory-building challenges.
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Alongside the many, many mods that have been built for Factorio, there’s enough game here to keep you playing for the rest of your natural life. So while I am a little surprised to see Wube close the book on Factorio, I don’t begrudge it at all.
As for what 2.1 itself will bring, Wube hasn’t revealed specifics yet. But the studio is open about the fact that it won’t bring any major new features like planets, enemies, and so forth. Instead, it will introduce some quality-of-life improvements, several “small” new features, the usual round of polish and bugfixes, plus a few tweaks to modding support.
It’s also worth noting that, while development of Factorio is ending, Wube Software is kicking around ideas for something new. Again, Wube is candid about the prototypical nature of these ideas, stating that “there will not be anything to share for a long time”. But the studio has recruited three new staff members to replace three departing employees, while its focus will gradually shift from supporting Factorio to spending time on “other game prototypes/experiments.”
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