Satisfactory (Early Access)

Released: 8 Jun 2020
Reviewed: 10 Sep 2022
Platform: PC

Satisfactory is a game about automating production chains; basically 3D Factorio. It's beautiful, well optimised and totally absorbing for people who like to automate things. There's tons of content, which is both a benefit and a drawback at the moment. There's probably a hundred hours of things to build, and I think only the hardcore will ever get there. Production chains get so complicated that after 40 hours, I was only halfway through the EA content and I think most people will never see the really cool things like trains. While I understand some people love the complexity - I feel like drawing massive diagrams just to work out how to create one part is really overkill.

Notes

There's a beautiful amount of attention to detail here. The miners play a whole animation before they start drilling. Coolant is added, then it starts drilling down before they start producing. There's a coffee mug that you can carry around and drink which occasionally clinks against your helmet. The manual crafting panel slowly starts to heat up, then smokes, then goes yellow as you make more and more things in a row. It's little things like that that really make it immersive and a joyful thing to play.

Pros

Cons

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