After 5 years, beloved factory base builder Satisfactory is finally leaving Early Access in 2024

Satisfactory
(Image credit: Coffee Stain Studios)

After five years in Early Access (and eight years in development), the beloved factory building game Satisfactory is finally set to go 1.0 this year.

"There's not going to be any more updates to the game in Early Access," community manager Snutt Treptow explains in a new dev video. "This is the year where we finally finish Satisfactory. [dabs] So we don't have a date to reveal just yet, but we do know that 2024 is going to be the year."

We don't get much detail on what the 1.0 update will look like, but it seems to be a sizable release: "The main thing it will contain is new, yet-to-be-seen content, fixes to some of the long-lasting issues we've had in the game, and a way to complete the game, along with a narrative."

Development on Satisfactory had previously been split between various updates, but now the team is unifying to focus entirely on the 1.0 version. That means we'll see "next to no patches" leading up to launch. But you will be able to get an early taste of the new content thanks to a closed beta, which you can sign up for over at the official site. The devs say slots for that beta will be limited.

The news was announced as part of a new "roadmap" video, but not without a few of developer Coffee Stain Studios' trademark shenanigans. There's a big fakeout about unceasing updates, never ending content, making the game "just like Fortnite," and so on before we get to the actual news. After this long in Early Access, it's the perfect gag to set up the final road before that 1.0 launch.

You'll definitely find something satisfactory in our list of the best crafting games.

Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.