Miju Games dropped the Planet Crafter Skeo update on September 1st, and it’s a big one. A whole new moon, new machines, new species, and a rebalance of the farms that have been quietly annoying me for months. I’ve put a lot of hours into Planet Crafter, and this update hits some things I’ve been complaining about in Discord. It also locks the new content behind a grind that makes me sigh just thinking about it.
My first reaction is relief that Miju Games is still giving this game real content for free. Skeo isn’t a small patch. It’s a new world with its own lore, machines, resources, and species. That’s the kind of update that usually comes with a price tag. But then I read the unlock requirements, and my relief curdled a little. To even see Skeo, you need to fully terraform a starting planet and build the Extraction Platform and Interplanetary Travel Rocket. I’ve done that once on Prime. Doing it again on Toxicity just to see the new moon? That’s a big ask. I’m hoping the endgame pacing changes make that grind less painful, because right now the thought of it makes me want to lie down.
What the Skeo update actually adds
The headline feature is the Skeo moon itself. It’s not a starting planet. You have to earn your way there by fully terraforming Prime, Toxicity, Humble, or Selenea, then building the Extraction Platform and the Interplanetary Travel Rocket. Once you do, Skeo becomes a destination. The update is compatible with previous saves, which is good news for anyone who doesn’t want to start over. Miju Games also says to restart Steam and delete mods if you run into issues. It’s available on Xbox, PS5, and GOG right now, not just Steam.
Skeo brings a pile of new unlocks with it. There’s an Underground Pod for building bases underground, an Incubator T2, a Tree Planter T3, Rocket Animals T2, a new tree called the Brojo, an interior lamp, and a craftable Magnetar quartz. There’s also a new animal specific to Skeo, and the changelog says you have to explore the moon to figure out how to create it. A new spacesuit is hidden somewhere in Skeo’s world, and there’s a new “animal 10” effigy in portal wrecks. Prime also got a new wreck in the Cascades sector and some improvements to the top of the Grand Canyon sector.
The changelog is long, and a lot of it is about pacing. Miju Games reworked the values of insect, fish, and amphibian farms. They increased generation values and inventory sizes for butterfly farms, fish farms, aquariums, amphibian farms, animal shelters, and tree spreaders. Their reasoning is blunt: most players found it easier to just build tree spreaders, and there wasn’t enough incentive to create living beings except mammals. So they buffed the living being farms to speed up the endgame a bit. They also added a “Slots Number” info in the details popup so you can see how many inputs a generating machine has. They changed inventory sizes to match machine levels and slot counts. And they completely removed phytoplankton B and C from the game, replacing them with A. That’s a logistics simplification I’m very happy about.
Other changes: Quasar quartz recipe now needs one algae instead of three. Blazar quartz unlocks sooner, but Megadome unlocks later. Rocket Insects T2 unlocks sooner. Variant genetic traits have a higher chance to be looted. The autocrafter no longer displays Toxicity objects if Toxicity isn’t unlocked, and it doesn’t show the quartz craft station before you unlock it. Genetic extractor and synthesizer unlock a bit later. They fixed environment flickers when moving between pods. There’s a new button in the drone UI to stop all drones. Drones T2 now require Drone T1 in the recipe. Flower pots T2 and T3 now have generation. T2 rockets went from 5000% to 6000% generation. Rocket reactor T2 unlocks sooner, tree spreader T1 unlocks sooner, vegetable grower T2 grows faster, OreBreaker T1 uses less energy. The silk generator now produces insects value. Ore Extractor T3 unlocks sooner. Genetic extractor, manipulator, and synthesizer are now in the biomass category in the construction menu. Tree seed creation time in the tree sequencer is reduced. The incubator is quicker. Some machines got sounds. Some description texts changed. And on consoles, controller buttons can now be remapped in the options. That’s a lot of small quality-of-life stuff that adds up.
What this means for Planet Crafter players
The farm rebalance is the part I care about most. I’ve abandoned runs because the endgame felt like waiting for tree spreaders to do everything. Making butterflies, fish, and amphibians actually worth building gives me a reason to engage with systems I’ve been ignoring. The phytoplankton change is also welcome. I never liked managing three types of phytoplankton. One type with a simpler recipe is better.
The Skeo unlock requirement is my biggest worry. Fully terraforming a planet is a long process. If you’ve already done it, great. If you haven’t, you’re looking at dozens of hours before you can see the new content. Miju Games says the pacing changes speed up the endgame, and I hope that’s true. The fact that there are now three moons to explore makes the grind feel more justified, but it’s still a grind. I’d love to see a future update add a way to start fresh on Skeo, even if it’s a harder difficulty. For now, I’m going to load up my old Prime save and see if I can get to the new moon before I burn out again.
One thing I appreciate is that Miju Games is still a small team, and they’re still giving us free updates like this. The changelog is detailed and honest about why they made the changes. That’s rare. I’ll be watching to see if the farm buffs actually make living beings competitive with tree spreaders. And I’ll be grinding toward Skeo, probably complaining the whole time.
