After the Space Age expansion, Factorio has a record number of players. This is causing thousands of engineers to leave their day jobs.

Factorio’s Space Age expansion was released yesterday. It managed to reach a new peak in player count for the game. 91,801 people returned to the game to try out the expansion.

Space Age is a massive expansion that more than doubles the original game's size. It continues the journey of the player after they launch rockets in space. You can explore new worlds and harvest resources. You can also manage your fleet of interplanetary ships. You'll need to build airtight defences to shoot down asteroids that may destroy your platform. Then, you can use the rubble for ammunition and thruster fuel. Finally, you can use the platform hub to shuttle cargo between planets. You can watch the trailer to get a glimpse of what planetary adventures you'll be facing.

It's not surprising that Factorio is seeing a surge in player numbers. "Past 50 000 now," says one player. "Given how many people, including myself, are currently working, I expect that this will continue to rise." 70,000 is next big milestone. It's 2x the previous peak. The game reached a peak of 34,700 users when it was released in August 2020. 91,801 players is a feat that has more than doubled its previous record.

Another player says, "100,000. This weekend is not out the question if we keep up this pace." "Satisfactory 2.0 did the same thing last week. We are really in a golden era of factory games at the moment.

SteamDB reports that Satisfactory has seen its player count steadily drop since its launch at version 1.0. It also reached a new record of 186158 players. Since the release of Factorio's Space Age, player numbers have dropped by 20,000. I wouldn't surprise if some of these players decided to check out Factorio's new content. It will be interesting to see how many players there are in the coming weekend. I'm also looking forward to seeing what amazing creations will come out of this new influx of players.