When it comes to making simulation titles, astragon Entertainment and weltenbauer know their stuff and this latest expansion comes from their simulation studios as well. Spaceport Expansion is the latest major DLC released for Construction Simulator, a brilliant construction game that was released originally back in 2022. Ever since its release, astragon and weltenbauer have been pushing content for it and now, we have the first official expansion called Spaceport Expansion and it is a mighty one. This is our review of the PC Steam release of Construction Simulator – Spaceport Expansion in which we build a spaceport and watch a rocket fly.
The Spaceport Expansion takes you to a brand-new island and map that feels like something built around an Amazon jungle. There is a lot of greenery here and you will notice that it is much smaller compared to the previous maps. This might be because the map only comprises of the rocket launch facilities and nothing else. It feels like a complex rather than a proper city and it is constructed in the middle of nowhere. While building the Spaceport sounds like a single project, as soon as you start the campaign, you are introduced to multiple contracts that you have to complete in order to make the Spaceport fully functional. One of the things that bothered me is that you need to create a new company here and anything from the other two maps cannot be brought here. It is similar to the base game where you had to start afresh on each map.
The campaign begins with you arriving on the island and meeting with the financial advisor of the project who details how the previous construction firm left the work in the middle and now they are stuck in a pickle. You jump in as their savior and start right off. To complete everything and launch your very first rocket, you have two main campaigns that you must complete. One is in the Science and Technologies department while the other one is in the Economy and Spacecraft department. Each of these campaigns comes with 3 main contracts that you have to complete in order to fulfill that specific campaign. You can start whichever campaign you want to before and complete their missions in any order as well. Since these are advanced missions, you get a healthy amount of money for machinery and construction materials so that is no issue.
Over the course of these six contracts, you will spend your time building different Spaceport facilities like the Vehicle Assembly Building, Control Center, Geo Dome, and Access Center. These buildings are located all over the complex so you will remain busy in different locations for the entirety of the 40+ hours that you will spend in the game. The main missions are more diversified than all of the missions that you will find in most of the contracts of the base game and the Airfield DLC. Right from the start, you will be using some of the most advanced vehicles in the game and there is no slowing down from there. The contracts are pretty lengthy and nearly all stages will take a lot of time which is why the overall completion time of the expansion is pretty long.
Apart from the main contracts, you also have the opportunity to complete some side projects to pass the time such as building link roads between different structures, smaller offices, or warehouses that would assist the main buildings. These are an excellent source of XP and money and since you do not get a lot of contracts and missions here, the payout is massive from even the smallest of the contracts, and you will be running a fairly big construction firm in no time. The main focus of the new Spaceport Expansion is not to expand your own firm by grinding but rather focus on various aspects of the Spaceport and building its many facilities. Once the main contracts are complete, you have a final contract to finish the campaign with an epic ending.
To cater to your projects, different facilities are located right around the main sites and since the map is not that big, you do not have to drive too far to reach any of them. You will find the material supplier, vehicle dealer, gravel plant, and everything else around the Spaceport complex and within easy reach. This time around, I actually had fun through the excavation sequences because the Gravel Plant was not too far, and I was able to quickly empty my dumpers after filling them up. The map on its own looks pretty good too and it is completely different from what you find in the base game’s two maps. It has plenty of foliage and the roads are much smaller. There is even a cool railway track that leads from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the Launch Pad to transport the rocket. The map design looks amazing, and it really makes you feel like you are driving around, building high-profile buildings in a far-off location.
If you have been enjoying spending time with Construction Simulator, the new expansion is very well worth your time. It not only offers a lot of gameplay time, but the overall premise is also very cool, and it keeps you glued to the screen since you want to see that rocket launch as quickly as possible. Still, the campaign contracts are pretty meaty, and it gives you a perfect chance to explore some of the newer construction vehicles added post-launch such as the SANY Pack. As far as I can remember, I used nearly all types of construction vehicles that are currently available in the game for this expansion and this just shows the scale of the contracts in it. I loved building the new Spaceport and I will highly recommend that you jump into it as well if you liked the base game.
Final Verdict:
Construction Simulator – Spaceport Expansion is the first proper expansion for Construction Simulator and it brings a brand-new challenge for you to complete. The change of scenery is a nice pace and the tasks inside the contracts are much more varied as well when compared to the previous Airfield Expansion where tasks were a bit more tedious and simpler. If you were missing the challenge of constructing a huge infrastructure in the game, the new Spaceport Expansion is exactly the expansion for you. There is much more variety of machinery involved here and you will need to really invest some serious time to complete it to the end. If you were looking to extract even more time from Construction Simulator, you should definitely get the new Spaceport Expansion because it is challenging, it is refreshing and it is worth investing time into.
Final Score: 8.5/10
