“Peerlessly satisfying,” was how RPS guides editor and self-described “Anton Ego of factory games” Ollie Toms summarised Shapez 2 back at early access launch in August 2024. Throwing caution to the winds, he suggested that it had “turned the holy trinity of factory games (Factorio, Satisfactory, Dyson Sphere Program) into a holy quartet.”
To tinker with such perfection is surely tempting the wrath of the gods, but nonetheless, developers tobspr Games have been meddling. They’ve just announced that they hope to release the automation strategy sim into 1.0 this November, together with a new mode, proper modding support, and Steam achievements.
To catch you up, Shapez 2 is about manufacturing and feeding shapes to an insatiable cosmic sinkhole. Which is absolutely nightmarish, of course, but as regards the moment-to-moment, Shapez 2 is a laidback experience that abstracts away many of the pressures of genre kingpins like Factorio.
Building space can be limited, but buildings don’t cost resources and there are no outraged indigenous bug monsters to bother about. As such, you can throw up production chains and remove them without penalty, whether to free up real estate or dabble with new approaches. Going by tobspr’s recent Steam post, the ethereality of it all has perhaps carried the game a little too far into “pure” puzzling territory.
“The biggest complaint we get about shapez 2 right now is the persistency of factories,” they write. “Many of you noted that having to tear down a factory you just built because the shape is no longer needed could feel bad. It also means that the game can feel more like a puzzle game than a factory/automation game at times – nothing is inherently bad about that in the first place, but we felt we are also missing something for the ones of you that are leaning more into the factory game direction.”
Hence the planned new mode (teaser WIP image above), which is basically designed to ensure that “the factories you built in the beginning are still useful in the later stages of the game – so it’s up to you to decide when you want to redesign, move or extend it, if at all.” To put that another way, the developers are trying to avoid the issue of obsolescence. It’s an interesting wrangle for a sim about mass production.
The developers may make this new game mode the default for new players, but they’ll only do that based on playtesting and the existing mode will remain available as a “classic” option.
As for modding support, they’re aiming to integrate mod.io directly into the game, so that you can access mods from within Shapez 2 using a browser. “I know that some of you highly prefer steam workshop, but the main issue for us is cross-platform compatibility,” the devs comment. “If we ever would release shapez 2 on GOG for example, it would mean that that version wouldn’t support mods for example.”
Last but not least, they have some provisional plans for savegame compatibility as and when all of the above is introduced. Older “classic” mode saves will likely not be compatible with 1.0, but there will be a separate Steam branch where you can carry on playing those saves, the drawback being that you won’t get Steam achievements or be able to use mods while playing on this older branch. Blueprints will remain compatible between modes.
Again, look out for all of that in November. Unless there’s a bottleneck in production, anyway. “We hope we can get everything done in time so we can release it in November, but at this point we have no idea if we’ll actually make it in time,” the devs hedge. “So please don’t be mad in case we don’t.”
Will that be reassurance enough for guides editor Ollie, the cutthroat connoisseur of conveyer belts? Playing the analogy out, I really hope that the Shapez 2 developers are secretly rats, and that Ollie’s first five minutes with the 1.0 version will trigger a flashback to the very first time his mum treated him to a nourishing bowl of gears.
