Coffee Stain Studios just dropped a massive bombshell during The Big Break Showcase: Satisfactory is officially getting its first paid expansion.
Titled Satisfactory: Core Values, the upcoming DLC is taking the beloved factory automation game in an entirely new direction: straight down. While the developers have kept some of their cards close to the chest, there is already a wealth of confirmed information regarding what players can expect from this subterranean overhaul.
If you are looking to prepare your pioneer squad for the next stage of FICSIT’s master plan, here is everything currently confirmed about the Core Values expansion, with zero speculation.
1. A Brand-New Underground Expedition
The core premise of the DLC takes players deep beneath the surface of MASSAGE-2(A-B)b. Coffee Stain has confirmed the introduction of massive underground biomes.
The most significant gameplay shift here will be the building environment. The developers have emphasized that these underground caverns introduce “cavernous constraints”. Unlike the surface world where you can endlessly sprawl your conveyor belts across open plains, the rocky boundaries of the deep will force players to design much tighter, highly efficient, and vertical factory lines.
2. Seamless Surface-to-Cavern Transitions
You will not be forced to leave your current mega-factory behind. The developers confirmed that the underground biomes are not an isolated instance; players will be able to seamlessly hop between the Core Values content and the main surface world at will.
This means your sprawling surface factories and your new, highly constrained underground production lines will operate simultaneously.
3. New Story, Resources, and Creatures
This isn’t just a map expansion; it is a full-fledged content drop. The showcase confirmed that Core Values will introduce:
- A fresh, dedicated storyline.
- Entirely new resources to mine and process.
- New factory buildings and production systems tailored for the underground.
- New creatures, including a brief glimpse of a “friendly-looking feline”.
4. The Base Game is Not Being Abandoned
A major concern with paid DLCs is that the base game gets left behind. Coffee Stain explicitly addressed this in their press release, confirming that as development for Core Values continues, the standard base game will still receive regular updates and quality-of-life improvements across all platforms.
5. Release Date and Pricing
Currently, Core Values is officially listed as “To Be Announced” (TBA). Coffee Stain has not provided a release window or an official price point yet, but they did confirm it will be a paid expansion that requires the base game to play. It is confirmed for PC (Steam and Epic Games), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.
The Hardware Reality Check: Start Preparing Now
While we wait for an official release date, there is one massive technical takeaway from this announcement that server administrators need to acknowledge: Entity counts are about to double.
Because the game allows you to hop between the surface and the underground seamlessly, your multiplayer server is going to be tasked with calculating two separate mega-factories at the exact same time. Every belt, every splitter, and every constructor in the caverns will be added to the processing load of your existing surface structures.
If your multiplayer server is already experiencing desync, rubberbanding, or late-game lag on the surface, the Core Values expansion will push that hardware past its breaking point. Massive, dual-layer factories require astronomical single-core CPU performance to calculate the entities, and pure NVMe storage to handle the autosaves without freezing the server.
Don’t wait until the DLC drops to find out your budget host can’t handle the caverns.
