The whistle has blown. The belts have stopped. The furnace is silent and cold. After 14 years of continual development, Factorio has received its final major update.

Developer Wube Software revealed that update 2.1 would be the last significant patch for its genre-defining factory building sim back in May, with the team deciding the game had "reached a good place to conclude active game development". The decision comes two years after Wube released Factorio's remarkable Space Age expansion, which lets players take their industrialisation efforts into the stars and across four wildly different alien planets.

If you were hoping Wube might sign off on Factorio on a similarly spectacular note, you may be disappointed. In its latest Friday Facts blog, the developer reiterates that 2.1 "isn't about new planets, enemies or research trees," and instead delivers "a big collection of quality of life, small features, polish, and the things we wanted to for 2.0 but didn't have time for."

This doesn't mean 2.1 has nothing of interest, however. Quite the opposite. The primary changes revolve around the space logistics introduced by Space Age, with Wube making it easier to ferry goods up into space and between planets. Rockets, for instance, can now carry multiple different items rather than just one thing, making it considerably easier to get space platforms built. On top of that, platforms can also transfer items between one another in orbit and automatically import items from all available locations.

Also on the space logistics front, Wube has added a constructable unloading bay that can be attached to landing pads, allowing inserters to pull out items and place them directly onto belts, into trains and so forth.

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