Hello,
It has been some time, and we're happy to share some news with you today.
We have been working on the major 2.1 update for Factorio and Space age for the last 8 months, and it has been shaping up quite well.
Generally, we are happy with the game design of Factorio and Space age. The progression is good, things are mostly well balanced (one or two exceptions), and there isn't anything we feel is majorly missing. That is to say, we didn't go into 2.1 development with grand designs of large new pieces of content or huge features.
It will be mostly:
And to state it clearly:
We had one of our traditional office LAN playtestings 2 weeks ago, our last chance to catch anything missing or feel some larger things to change about the game.
For a little bit of a challenge we decided to play a deathworld, and also attempt the "Keeping your hands clean" achievement, which means we couldn't kill any biter bases until we researched artillery.
How our factory looked at the end of day one.
After the somewhat brutal first day, our expeditionary engineers returned from Vulcanus with the big guns, so we could get the achievement and breathe a little easier.
Overall, the playtesting went super smoothly, we played our way through all the planets and finished with a respectable time of 53 hours 15 minutes. We didn't find any big bugs, no desyncs or save corruptions, and really no impediment to the next step of our plan.
For the next few weeks we will do some closed beta testing, and if all goes well we hope to release 2.1 as experimental by the end of June. Experimental means the update is public, but you will need to opt-in to receive it (through Steam or the in-game updater), or specifically download the experimental release from our website.
Once released, we will have the usual bugfixing, before our summer vacations start in July. Importantly, we plan to keep 2.1 as experimental over the whole summer (I.E, not mark it stable), so that mod authors will have plenty of time to update.
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. Other than that we feel we've reached a good place to conclude the active gameplay development.
In a previous post (FFF-439) we mentioned that we have been starting work on projects other than Factorio. Honestly there will not be anything to share for a long time, but you might notice some of our team members less active fixing bugs and working on Factorio as they spend their time on other game prototypes/experiments.
We have hired a few new humans to help with development of Factorio and the new projects:
It is also a natural time for some of our team to spread their wings and rocket off to new challenges.
Such as our long time rendering expert Posila. Posila worked with us for 10 years in the deepest parts of the game engine and rendering systems, and helped make sure the game is playable for as many players as possible. He took the noble sacrifice in the office to use only old outdated Nvidia and AMD graphics cards to make sure we don't lose touch with low-end performance, and performed several miracles around the new rendering/VRAM demands over the years. As he takes his very well deserved time of peace and relaxation; his legacy and impact in the code, company, and community, will never go without thanks.
Programming wizard Tobias. Tobias helped us through the thick of Space age development, tracking down the trickiest and most painful bugs and weird crashes, and coming out the other side with a beautiful and magical fix. Other than that he was responsible for a lot of the circuit connections for new entities, polishing and logic fixes for many of the new systems (Aquilo freezing, Space platforms, etc.), as well as general touch-ups here and there (even being brave enough to delve into the GUI).
As well as...
Over 5 years ago I was approached by Wube to join the Factorio team. At the time I was the co-owner and Art Director of a games development company and deep into the early phases of a new game project. Factorio was my favourite game though, and Wube is one of the most well respected development studios in the world, so it was an opportunity that I just couldn't pass up. Not only did I know that I enjoyed working on Factorio content because of my mods, but I also knew that I had a lot to offer. In fact I might dare to say that I could offer skills and experience that nobody else in the world could.
I joined the team, helped produce Space Age, and improved the base game along the way too. Although my title was officially "Concept Artist", my actual role has been far more diverse, branching into other areas including terrain generation systems, game design, art direction alongside Albert, game engine code, and much more. It's been a great experience and I'm very grateful to the team and the friends I've made along the way.
Now, it's time for me to move on. My own creative inspirations are calling to me so I'm leaving to make my own games. As for what I'm making, well I'm not ready to announce that fully. I have two prototypes that I'm working on and I don't have a clear winner yet. It will either be:
In the long run I intend to make both of these games (and more after), so the question is which one to make first. If either of these sound interesting to you, then please follow me in one of these locations:
Thanks again to Wube. I wish you all the best for your future endeavours.
We also recently welcomed a new member of the office team, Patty, whose role is to help optimize and expand our merchandise operations (Factorio Merch Store).
After some trouble with Czech post, we have been able to resume E-shop deliveries to the USA with a new shipping company Paketa/Zasilkovna. We also have some plans for new merch, but it is quite early in the pipeline.
As always, plan your thoughts at the usual places.
