Satisfactory 1.0 and Factorio: Space Age are set to launch later this year just six weeks apart from each other, and after years of waiting for both of these releases, factory management fans are making themselves ready for the time-eating black hole that awaits.
September 10 will see the launch of Satisfactory 1.0 after a five-year stay in Early Access. In the game's typically irreverent style, the announcement trailer reveals that the 1.0 update will make the toilet flushable - alongside less substantial changes, like revamped resources across the world map, alterations to recipe costs and research trees, improvements to optimization and dedicated servers, and more. The devs announced in June that the game's price would increase from $30 to $40 upon the full launch, but you have a few days left to grab Satisfactory for $15 on Steam as part of the Summer Sale.
The other big launch is Factorio: Space Age on October 21, a massive expansion for late-game players that lets you take your factories into space. This update has also been in the works for years, and by all accounts looks to be a full-on sequel in DLC clothing - at least, that's certainly what the $35 price tag, same price as the original game, seems to imply. The expansion also launches alongside the free 2.0 update for Factorio, which promises a massive range of upgrades and quality-of-life improvements.
These are two massive updates for two games that are already more than capable of melting away all your free time. Factorio has you building a massive factory processing natural resources on an alien planet from a top-down perspective, while Satisfactory has you doing the same thing in first-person. Maximizing your efficiency by getting your conveyor lines and resources harvesters just right tickles the brain in a way few other games can manage, and for strategy fans it looks like the last quarter of 2024 is going to disappear in a hurry.
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