Factorio: An enlargement is in progress.
With more than a million copies sold before it even went to version 1.0 on August 14, 2020, Factorio has quiet days. However, Wube Software LTD is not done with the management and automation game since a big expansion is already on the workbench.
In a new blog post, Michal Kovarik, principal designer of Factorio, indicated that a significant extension is under development. However, it should not be in a hurry since its release is not expected before 2022.
In his article, he mentions a small DLC and a Factorio 2 but rejects these ideas for the moment. He believes that small DLCs clutter up space more than anything else and that a Factorio 2 is irrelevant as Factorio appeals to developers, and redoing everything isn’t of great interest.
“What are we going to do? There are several possibilities. Retirement isn’t really an option for several reasons, and not going crazy is one of them.”
“There are a few smaller experiments outside of Factorio that we want to do, but other than that, we still want to expand the game. There are many ideas, so all we have to do is choose from the most relevant.”
Michal Kovarik finally arrives on the expansion and answers two questions: what will it contain, and when will it be released? To these questions, he answers:
“It’s far too early to show any of the shots, and since we want to keep the iterative process of things that turn out to be the most fun. All I can say is that we are starting to work on it now, and we don’t think it will take less than a year to develop it.”
Michal Kovarik indicates that version 1.1 is the final version regarding the base game, but that updates will continue to fix bugs, make improvements to the interface, and some balances.
He also took the opportunity to indicate that Factorio, in development for nearly nine years, had sold 2.5 million copies. Stay tuned for the next update.