Astroneer is getting an expansion that'll let you build huge megastructures

Space Station in Astroneer: Megatech expansion

(Image credit: System Era Softworks)

ASTRONEER - Megatech DLC Teaser Trailer - YouTube

Approaching its tenth year out, exploration and crafting hit Astroneer shows no signs of slowing down as developer System Era Softworks has announced a new full, paid expansion called Astroneer: Megatech. It's due out this November, with an accompanying free update, and will bring a new scale of construction to your exploratory infrastructure.

The free update will introduce a cargo system, an interplanetary transport network designed to ferry resources from one base to another without your little astroneer personally leading the charge and unloading everything. It'll be a huge boon for those who loved Astroneer's previously-added automation features.

The others, however, look pretty mysterious. One in concept art is some kind of massive greenhouse-like structure with a glass roof. Another is a deliciously vague giant bulb of a building that looks like it eats entire resource canisters for breakfast and puts them to work on some kind of giant... wheel... thing.

The last one I've spotted is the admittedly obvious one: A huge ring platform built around the small moon of one planet. There's a lot going on there, but it's clearly meant to be a central, space-based platform for your operations to work out of. Which is cool as hell, to be honest, but will probably take a boatload of resources to complete. For my part, I'm wondering if it's mobile. Do those look more like engines or asteroid grabbers to you?

You can find Astroneer: Megatech on Steam, where it's supposed to release in November. If you haven't had the pleasure of Astroneer-ing, well, it's apparently 67% off until September 8.

If you missed it, earlier this year System Era Softworks announced its next game, the Astroneer-adjacent-but-not-a-sequel Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions. It's to be a "a multiplayer voyage of discovery." System Era has apparently enlisted a second studio, Red Kite Games, to assist with Astroneer's continued development while they also work on Starseeker. Red Kite Games previously worked on Fall Guys and Two Point Hospital. You can read more about that in System Era's Astroneer: Megatech blog.

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.

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