KEY POINTS

  • "Factorio's" expansion will be as large as the base game
  • The expansion will be treated as a mod for the sake of compatibility and ease-of-use
  • The developer has yet to announce the expansion's release date

There’s a bit more information now about the upcoming expansion for Wube Software’s construction and management game “Factorio” following a new devblog that was uploaded nearly one year since the previous one.

Wube shared more news about the development of the new expansion, but they refrained from sharing anything too specific about it. The developers noted two important things about this expansion, though. The first is that the entire thing will be as extensive as the base game itself in terms of content and mechanics, and the second is that the expansion will be treated like a mod that can be enabled or disabled on a whim.

It’s important to note that the vanilla “Factorio” experience is ridiculously large. The number of systems that are already in place is high enough to cause headaches for some players out of sheer complexity, and it’s hard to imagine how Wube is going to expand this even further.

On the other hand, the devs did mention that they’re already in the prototyping phase of development. According to the devblog, most of the expansion is already playable and Wube is getting ready to playtest the entire thing from start to finish.

Factorio is a game about building, managing and optimizing complex factories in order to escape a hostile planet
Factorio is a game about building, managing and optimizing complex factories in order to escape a hostile planet Wube Software

Once the expansion goes live, it will actually be treated like normal mods that can be toggled on and off in the main menu. The developers said that this decision was made deliberately for the sake of compatibility and convenience.

This will make playing a campaign without the new content easy to access and it will also make playing with non-DLC owners less complicated. Having the expansion be treated like a mod also prevents any conflict with existing mods.

Wube clarified that the expansion won’t be “just a mod.” Multiple improvements to the current game engine will arrive with the expansion, and the sheer scale of the project is vast enough to warrant a $30 price tag at launch.

Most of the actual details regarding the new content have not been revealed, but the devs did share some concept art and a look at the improved creature graphics.

As the expansion approaches the playtesting phase, players can expect to wait for just a little bit longer until it’s fully released. However, whether or not the release date will be within 2022 is still unclear.

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