shapez 2 Hits Early Access on 15 August and new Wishlist Milestone

tobspr Games from Aachen has announced that shapez 2, the sequel to shapez, will launch on Steam Early Access on 15 August, just before gamescom. The factory building game has just passed the 300,000 wishlist milestone.

shapez 2 will be available on Steam Early Access on 15 August. The release date is a clever one, as the game will be released before its direct competitors, Satisfactory (10 September) and Factorio: Space Age (21 October).

The game is a factory/automation game with infinite resources and no construction costs, so everyone can solve the production puzzles at their own pace. The game starts small and lets you use the skills you learn as you play to build bigger and more complicated factories, this time with 3D gameplay that allows the player to layer up to three belts on top of each other. As the game progresses, players must create increasingly complex shapes to feed the vortex. "There are no predetermined recipes in shapez 2 - buildings perform simple functions such as cutting shapes in half, changing their color or stacking them, so it's up to you to find a way to transform basic circles and squares into all kinds of colorful shapes," the company says. tobspr Games is developing and publishing the game itself, with Gamera Games helping with publishing in Asia. Game Drive from the Netherlands is involved in PR and marketing.

"We're proud to have reached the point where shapez 2 is ready to be released in Early Access. The game already offers players a full-fledged experience worthy of a full launch - now we're going to take the time to continue polishing the game and add more content until we're completely satisfied with what we've created," Tobias Springer, founder of tobspr Games, says. "We're thankful for our passionate community that is just as invested in this game as we are and will help us shape the game even further during the Early Access period. Without our players we could not have made it this far to begin with."

shapez 2 is currently ranked 94th on Steam's most wanted list, with over 300,000 wishlists. In February 2024, the game had already surpassed 260,000 wishlists. With multi-level factories, conveyor belts, trains, fluids, blueprints and more, shapez 2 is a factory building game that focuses on just that. It is tailored for "enthusiasts who crave the thrill of optimizing production lines and perfecting automation," the developers say.

At Early Access launch, shapez 2 can be played in four different modes: Normal, Hard, Insane and an experimental Hexagonal mode in which shapes have six sides instead of four. Until the full release, the developer will add even more modes and content as they continue to work on the game. The Early Access period is expected to last at least six months. In Early Access, the game can be purchased for €24.99. For those looking to offer the developer additional support can acquire the Supporter Edition for €34.99. This includes the base game, cosmetic rail twisters and loops, plus an extra 40 minutes of soundtrack. The Supporter Edition Upgrade DLC will be available for €9.99. All of these editions will have a 10 per cent discount in the first two weeks after launch.

The first shapez is a 2D factory-building and automation game that is all about the creation of increasingly complex shapes across an infinitely expanding map. It sold more than 650,000 units on Steam and attracted more than 10 million players to its demo on shapez.io.

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