Satisfactory update 6 will tackle exploration, while devs gear up for 1.0

Satisfactory has been putting out regular major updates since the factory sim launched in early access back in 2020, but it’s developers are now changing focus a little. A new video which describes the contents of the next release – Update 6, focused on exploration – also explains why the development team are going to start taking longer between releases. The short answer? Because they’re working on releasing version 1.0.

Here’s the video that explains everything:

It’s a common story for early access games. They want to produce regular updates for the audience, because that’s how you attract and maintain that audience. Some features simply cannot be produced in the short turnaround those regular updates require, however, and so they get bumped back and bumped back. If developers want to actually finish a game – or at least hit something they can call 1.0 – then they often have to slow the update schedule down to take on some of that longer work.

To that end, Update 6 is a smaller update that is likely to live on the experimental branch for longer than normal while larger work is done in the background for later updates. Which isn’t to say that update 6 isn’t interesting in itself. The video explains that it will aim to make exploration of the planet less of a chore, with environmental changes, in-game map and technical improvements, as well as new creatures and equipment, all being introduced to make exploring more interesting.

If you don’t know it, Satisfactory is a first-person factory construction game, in which you gradually colonize a planet with conveyor belts, resource converters and other machinery until you have a full automated, highly efficient and self-sustaining base. It’s moreish to tinker with and very pretty to look at, and has been since its first release.