Wube marked Factorio 2.1 as stable on 23 October 2026 (version 2.1.23), after a summer in experimental. The studio calls it the game's last major update: no new planets, no new enemies, but a long list of quality of life changes and polish.
What changes in the game
The full tour is in Wube's Friday Facts #449. What matters most for a multiplayer game:
- Mixed rockets: one rocket can carry several different items in a single launch, and space platforms can trade items with each other in orbit.
- Circuit network: reads and writes can go to different wire colors. Handy, but it may break existing designs in your factory.
- Space Age without Quality in the game: the Recycler becomes its own mod, and Quality is no longer required to play Space Age.
- Fluid mixing is blocked again: two pipelines carrying different fluids no longer connect, and the game warns you.
- Biter expansions grow with evolution, instead of scattering lots of tiny nests.
On TickServ: nothing to do
Your Factorio server fetches the latest game image every time it starts. That image moved to 2.1.23 on 23 October around 5 pm (Paris time), so any server started since runs 2.1. The port (34197, UDP) and the location of your world are unchanged.
A 2.0 world loads in 2.1: Wube says so, and we checked it on a real server. A server that has been running since before stays on 2.0. Steam has updated your players' games, so stop it and start it again so they can join.
What we fixed the same day
With 2.1, a server without Space Age still loaded the Recycler mod, which risked turning away players who don't own the expansion. We spotted it within an hour of the release: since 5:45 pm the same day, the Recycler follows your Space Age setting. Off without Space Age, on with it. Both cases were tested on a real server before going live.
What this doesn't solve
- No going back to 2.0. Once your world is saved in 2.1, it no longer loads in 2.0, and we don't offer to stay on the old version.
- Space Age without Quality, not on TickServ yet. Our Space Age setting turns on the expansion, Quality and elevated rails together.
- Your mods need their 2.1 version. A mod you uploaded for 2.0 can stop the server from starting: download its 2.1 version from the mod portal.
- On the first start of a 2.0 world, your dashboard may still show 2.0: that's the version of the save. It switches to 2.1 at the first save.