Oh how I’ve been waiting for this day. The game that swallowed several months of my life during lockdown, Satisfactory, is finally leaving early access and launching in 1.0 on September 10, just a hair over two months from today. Coffee Stain announced the release in a short, silly trailer that shows nothing new from the 1.0 update but does advertise surely its most important addition, flushable toilets. As we’ve written in the past, you can understand a lot about a game through its virtual toilets, and I look forward to reexperiencing Satisfactory with a new, empowered flush mindset.
There’s a bit more Satisfactory news from the last month or so to catch up on pertaining to the 1.0 launch. Last week Coffee Stain announced that the price will increase from $30 to $40 before the 1.0 release. “This is to account for inflation, but also because we’ve spent many years improving the game since its initial release and initial price,” community manager Snutt said. The price will be going up “shortly after” the current Steam and Humble summer sales end. The game is currently 50% off on Steam, making it just $15 / £14, so if you do want to play Satisfactory when it hits 1.0, now’s really the time to grab it.
Earlier in June Snutt discussed some changes coming in 1.0 that won’t make much sense if you’ve never played Satisfactory, but may elicit gasps if you’re a longtime player. The developers have added, moved, and changed the rarity of many resource nodes around the map, which will no doubt screw up some existing builds but also open up new possibilities and encourage longtime players to go exploring again.
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There’s also a lot of rebalancing going on, first and foremost with computers and supercomputers, two parts that are notoriously a pain in the ass to manufacture. Two structures that once required supercomputers to build, programmable splitters for conveyor belts and geothermal generators for harnessing power from geysers, are now “freed from supercomputer jail” and require simpler parts to construct. The goal is for geothermal power to become much more viable in the early game.
“We’ve done some switcheroos to make sure that you have access to some of the handy tools before you reach the endgame,” said Snutt, which includes gas masks, the jetpack, trucks, and trains. Trains no longer require computers to build, making them much more usable in the early game. And computers will no longer require screws (God, I used to have to make so many screws), removing a big production bottleneck.
Satisfactory 1.0 will indeed include the long-teased story that’s been held back during early access, though you’ll apparently miss out on some story triggers if you start playing 1.0 on an existing save file that you’ve progressed through multiple tiers of production. Snutt stopped short of saying everyone should start a fresh save for 1.0, but let’s be honest—longtime builders are already thinking about how they could start over and do it all even better this time.