Coffee Stain Studios announced Satisfactory Core Values on September 29, 2026, during its first Big Break Showcase. It is the first paid DLC for Satisfactory and a full expansion rather than a cosmetic pack: Pioneers drill down through the crust, mantle and core of MASSAGE 2(A-B)b and build a factory network underground. The big question everyone is searching for is the Satisfactory DLC release date, so here is the short answer up front: there is no date yet, and Coffee Stain has said it will not land in 2026.
Below is everything that has actually been confirmed, what is still unknown, and what it means if you run a Satisfactory dedicated server for your group.
When Is the Satisfactory Core Values Release Date?
The Steam store page for Satisfactory - Core Values Expansion lists the release date as "To be announced", and no price has been published. What we do know:
- Announced: September 29, 2026, at The Big Break Showcase
- Release window: not in 2026, per Coffee Stain. No 2027 date has been given
- Platforms: day-and-date on Steam, Epic Games Store, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5
- Price: not announced
- Base game: Coffee Stain says Satisfactory itself will keep getting regular updates in the meantime
So if you were hoping to plan a fresh co-op run around it this winter, that is off the table. If you have a long-running world, though, there is a good reason to keep it going (more on that below).
What Is in the Core Values Expansion?
Core Values takes the factory below the surface. According to the announcement and the store page, the expansion adds:
- Cavernous underground biomes with new flora, fauna and hostile creatures native to the depths
- A new story campaign that digs into alien anomalies found in the dark caves
- New buildings, equipment, research and production lines built around pulling resources out of the terrain itself
- A friendly feline, the one-eyed alien cat that stars in the teaser and has already become the face of the DLC
- Easy travel between the surface and the underground, so you can hop between Core Values and the main story whenever you like
The store page also lists online co-op and cross-platform multiplayer, which matters for anyone hosting a shared world.
A Very Different Kind of Building
The most interesting design detail is the one that sounds least exciting on paper. Coffee Stain says the natural formation of the underground puts restrictions on factory building, and you will need the new tools to work around them. On the surface, Satisfactory rewards sprawl: you find a flat plain, lay foundations to the horizon and stack it. Caves have hard, rocky boundaries. That pushes you towards compact, vertical, carefully routed layouts, closer to a puzzle than a land grab.
For veteran players who have already built their megabase, that is the real hook. It is not more of the same game, it is the same logistics brain applied to a much tighter space.
Do You Need a New Save?
No, and this is the part server owners should care about most. The DLC can be activated once you reach Tier 3 of HUB research, after you have built the Space Elevator, and you can complete it at your own pace. It is designed to slot into a playthrough you already have, not to replace it.
That makes it worth getting your shared world past that point before release. A group that is sitting in Tier 1 and 2 today will have to grind through the early game again before anyone sees a cave. A group that already has the Space Elevator up can jump straight in on launch day.
What This Means for Your Satisfactory Server
Nothing changes on your server today: no DLC build has shipped, and there is nothing to install. When Core Values does arrive, this is the checklist we would follow on a dedicated server:
- Back up your save first. Download the
.savfrom the server's save folder through the File Manager or SFTP before you apply any update. A big content patch is exactly when you want a copy you can roll back to. - Update the server the same day the game updates. Satisfactory refuses to connect clients and servers that run different builds, so a server left on the old version simply stops letting people in.
- Expect mods to break for a while. Major game updates have historically needed a new Satisfactory Mod Loader (SML) release before mods work again. If your group runs mods, hold off on updating until SML catches up, or disable them for a few days.
- Join through the Server Manager, not Join Game. It sounds obvious, but it is the most common Satisfactory support question we get. Pasting the IP into Join Game fails with "Encryption token missing"; adding the server in the in-game Server Manager works.
- Watch the multiplayer ownership details. Coffee Stain has not yet said whether every player on a shared server needs to own Core Values to go underground. We will update this post when that is confirmed.
- Leave headroom for a second factory. An underground network on top of an existing surface base is more world for the server to simulate. Our Satisfactory RAM calculator budgets extra memory for very large factories, and that is where most long-running co-op saves end up.
If you are still setting your server up, our Satisfactory dedicated server guide covers ports, the Server Manager claim and save uploads step by step.
Is Core Values Worth Waiting For?
Two years after 1.0, Satisfactory could have coasted on free patches. Instead Coffee Stain is building a separate underground layer with its own story, creatures and building rules, and tying it to the saves people already care about. The lack of a date is frustrating, but "not in 2026" is an honest signal that this is a big piece of work, not a quick content drop.
Host Your Satisfactory Server with DoomHosting
Keep your co-op world running 24/7 so it is ready the day Core Values unlocks. DoomHosting's Satisfactory servers come with instant setup, full FTP and file manager access for save backups, DDoS protection and 24/7 support.
Get the Space Elevator up now, and the caves will be waiting.
