The game that celebrates OCD and multitasking has just dropped their Friday Facts, and it’s the last one of the year. Factorio developer Wub Software announces what to expect upcoming in 2020, changes that will be coming down the pipes, and a massive milestone.
To start with the last part first, Factorio has sold 2,000,000 units. Staggering considering the game is still in Early Access, and has never been on sale once on any platform. Considering the general niche genre that Factorio has claimed with automation, it’s a monumental piece of news that bodes well for the health of the game well after it’s upcoming release in September of 2020.
They’ve also announced that roughly 96.7% of Factorio owners are on Steam, as even those that purchased keys on Wube Software on their website opted to use Steam as their platform of choice. It’s an interesting bit fo developers still weighing the pros and cons of various platforms.
The tutorial has been announced to be switching back from the 0.17 build that focused on teaching the process of automation that is a staple in the title. The developers feel as though this broke the natural progression, or gameplay loop, that they want players to experience.
Friday Facts #327 – 2020 Visionhttps://t.co/11oSGuPzBC#factorio #gamedev
— Factorio (@factoriogame) December 28, 2019
It forced early and often automation, instead of encouraging players to begin manually and progressing to automation. It’s ultimately something that can become a victim of circular arguments, as the depth of Factorio is difficult to compartmentalize into a five-minute tutorial. Regardless, come build 0.18, we’ll see the tutorial switch back to the pre-0.17 version.
It brings the question of precisely what Wube believes the tutorial should look like; many have begun their games using the 0.18 system and there have been very little complaints across Factorio’s forums, Reddit, or even Twitter. Progression is generally unimpeded, and their early-game progression path is only slightly eschewed by the tutorial.
The desired progression path is manual mining to automated mining, to automated logistics, culminating in automated production and science. The main thing currently missing from the schedule is there isn’t much reason to manually mine; if they change it so players don’t start with automated miners, it brings the concern that the primary reason the tutorial was changed in the first place was to ensure players understood that everything is to be automated.
Regardless, fans will simply have to wait to see what this new tutorial will bring that neither tutorials have accomplished yet,m and judge for themselves if it’s markedly better than both.
