Satisfactory is exactly what it says on the tin; a first-person open-world factory building game. That sounds very distinct from the 'typical' third-person 2D factory builders and it really is; this familiar yet creative take has earned Satisfactory a spot alongside the other great factory builders of our time. With great graphics, a beautiful world, and all around good (addicting) design, Satisfactory is worth a look for both experienced engineers and anyone curious about testing the waters of the growing automation game genre.

"A factory game, but first-person, fully 3D, and with a handcrafted world" is an interesting pitch that comes with some unique blessings for a factory game (though can be a curse too). Putting the player up close and personal in the world has motivated Coffee Stain to produce an absolutely beautiful landscape that is a joy to explore. The world makes the jump to 3D so worth it, with impressive cliffs, caves, waterfalls, and other geographical features that just don't work in 2D. Exploration is a weak point of the other games in the genre as a procedurally generated world will never match up to the massive variety of handcrafted features and carefully designed nooks and crannies present on (this particular region of) Massage-2(AB)b. And it's not just that exploration itself is interesting, they've actually made exploration rewarding as the goodies scattered around the world are key to maximizing your factory's performance. It impresses me that a factory game figured out how to make exploration worthwhile and interesting at the same time.

Now it's not like the natural world is the only pretty thing in the game; all the factory buildings have great graphical and audio design as well (give the particle accelerator a listen when you have a moment spare). And unlike most games in the genre, you can enhance the visual appeal of your factory with a wide variety of aesthetic parts. It feels a bit weird to point out, but in most factory games you just leave all your machines outside in the elements, which is a great way to let things rust away! But in Satisfactory, you can actually build buildings to contain the machinery! Truly next gen stuff, and people have built some amazing structures as a result.
Watching the natural landscape get overtaken by your factory is about as impressive as taking in the original terrain (though sadly you cannot fully conquer nature as all terrain features are permanent and can merely be obscured by concrete, rather than completely flattened). Also like the natural terrain, the magic of the 3rd dimension allows for vertical scaling of factories (literally). I know for a lot of us used to 2D it's very easy to just expand the factory outward, but expanding upward gives new and interesting problems and solutions. So the factory doesn't just get to be pretty-there's still plenty of room to be clever and mechanical about factory construction.

But there's still the part that's a curse...the up-close 3D nature of Satisfactory does slow down the factory building process. Because everything is more detailed you don't get shortcuts like power poles distributing electricity in an aura around the pole (every power connection is done individually). Things like this might be considered a positive due to better aesthetics/realism, but there are still very real disadvantages...You can't just click and drag to build a dozen machines in one motion, there's no Ctrl + C Ctrl + V to copy an entire production line, and the terrain is always an obstacle. Even with blueprints, the size of blueprints is intentionally limited and some steps (like connecting belts, pipes, and power of one blueprint to the rest of the factory) are still manual. It's also pretty easy to misalign machines due to the lack of a true grid. This gets easier in the late game but is still nowhere near as smooth as in the third-person relatives of Satisfactory.
And all this is compounded by the fact that Satisfactory has some very complicated parts to manufacture. I like that; these complicated crafting recipes keep the factory part of the game interesting, but require complicated setups (and more of them) in an environment where every production line demands extra attention during set-up. Things take time.

This is not a deal breaker though. Like many games with elements of optimization, Satisfactory remains compelling even over extended playthroughs. Each production line may take some time to set up, but the gameplay loop always gives an incentive to set up those production lines, and exploration is always there to kill some time, clear your mind, and consider your next steps (while also finding helpful loot). Playing solo (multiplayer definitely makes things quicker) got me to the final objective after 150 hours, with my save now having a bit over 160 hours after getting all achievements. If I weren't going for 100%, took some shortcuts to get through objectives quicker, and explored less, 100 hours could be feasible. But those hours weren't unbearable (otherwise I wouldn't have gotten to the end yet!)
On the contrary, the experience is quite relaxing as the game expects you to take your time and doesn't enforce a sense urgency (for example, there is nothing trying to attack and destroy your factory). Even for the factory itself, it is often better to produce something slowly than to get stuck in analysis paralysis and not produce anything at all (people say the same applies in real life, citation needed). Satisfactory kept me coming back for extended play sessions day after day, to the point that I put as much time in as a full time job for a few weeks in a row (more enjoyable than my actual full time engineering job, of course).

So anyone who's accustomed to losing far too many hours to a factory game will be right at home in Satisfactory. The increased opportunity for aesthetics may be especially appealing for some of you, but the slower and more deliberate (though more relaxing) factory construction and challenges of not having a world grid won't appeal to those who care exclusively about making the biggest factories with as little manual effort as possible. Though for most people in the factory business, there's good times to be had in Satisfactory since you can play it however you like.


Oh yeah, and there's kinda a story too but perhaps the other factory builders were on the right track by not bothering with much story. The few elements of story left me with a lot of questions, very little info to guess at possible answers, and some straight up loose ends that were trying to build up to something but didn't. I don't think a story is necessarily incompatible with a factory game, but Satisfactory didn't do great to build tension around 'what am I being told to make? why am I being told to make it?' and the answers to that are shallow at best.
Also worth mentioning that one of the few plot points present means there's basically no post-game, you are completely free to your own devices after the end, which is a bit disappointing when other factory games at least have infinite incremental upgrades to test your production with. Perhaps after a >100-hour playthrough you'll want to be done, but otherwise you'd have to figure out your own arbitrary goals.

[h1][b]THE[/b] 3D Factory Builder[/h1] Satisfactory is exactly what it says on the tin; a first-person open-world factory building game. That sounds [i]very[/i] distinct from the 'typical' third-person 2D factory builders and it really is; this familiar yet creative take has earned Satisfactory a spot alongside the other great factory builders of our time. With great graphics, a beautiful world, and all around good (addicting) design, Satisfactory is worth a look for both experienced engineers and anyone curious about testing the waters of the growing automation game genre. [i]"A factory game, but first-person, fully 3D, and with a handcrafted world"[/i] is an interesting pitch that comes with some unique blessings for a factory game (though can be a curse too). Putting the player up close and personal in the world has motivated Coffee Stain to produce an absolutely [i]beautiful[/i] landscape that is a joy to explore. The world makes the jump to 3D so worth it, with impressive cliffs, caves, waterfalls, and other geographical features that just don't work in 2D. Exploration is a weak point of the other games in the genre as a procedurally generated world will never match up to the massive variety of handcrafted features and carefully designed nooks and crannies present on (this particular region of) Massage-2(AB)b. And it's not just that exploration itself is interesting, they've actually made exploration [i]rewarding[/i] as the goodies scattered around the world are key to maximizing your factory's performance. It impresses me that a factory game figured out how to make exploration worthwhile and interesting at the same time. Now it's not like the natural world is the only pretty thing in the game; all the factory buildings have great graphical and audio design as well (give the particle accelerator a listen when you have a moment spare). And unlike most games in the genre, you can enhance the visual appeal of your factory with a wide variety of [i]aesthetic[/i] parts. It feels a bit weird to point out, but in most factory games you just leave all your machines outside in the elements, which is a great way to let things rust away! But in Satisfactory, you can actually build [b]buildings[/b] to contain the machinery! Truly next gen stuff, and people have built some amazing structures as a result. Watching the natural landscape get overtaken by your factory is about as impressive as taking in the original terrain (though sadly you cannot fully conquer nature as all terrain features are permanent and can merely be obscured by concrete, rather than completely flattened). Also like the natural terrain, the magic of the 3rd dimension allows for vertical scaling of factories [i](literally)[/i]. I know for a lot of us used to 2D it's very easy to just expand the factory outward, but expanding upward gives new and interesting problems and solutions. So the factory doesn't just get to be pretty-there's still plenty of room to be clever and mechanical about factory construction. But there's still the part that's a [i]curse[/i]...the up-close 3D nature of Satisfactory does [u]slow down[/u] the factory building process. Because everything is more detailed you don't get shortcuts like power poles distributing electricity in an aura around the pole (every power connection is done individually). Things like this might be considered a positive due to better aesthetics/realism, but there are still very real disadvantages...You can't just click and drag to build a dozen machines in one motion, there's no Ctrl + C Ctrl + V to copy an entire production line, and the terrain is always an obstacle. Even with blueprints, the size of blueprints is intentionally limited and some steps (like connecting belts, pipes, and power of one blueprint to the rest of the factory) are still manual. It's also pretty easy to misalign machines due to the lack of a true grid. This gets easier in the late game but is still nowhere near as smooth as in the third-person relatives of Satisfactory. And all this is compounded by the fact that Satisfactory has some [i]very complicated parts[/i] to manufacture. I like that; these complicated crafting recipes keep the factory part of the game interesting, but require complicated setups [i](and [b]more[/b] of them)[/i] in an environment where every production line demands extra attention during set-up. [u]Things take time.[/u] This is not a deal breaker though. Like many games with elements of optimization, Satisfactory remains compelling even over extended playthroughs. Each production line may take some time to set up, but the gameplay loop always gives an incentive to set up those production lines, and exploration is always there to kill some time, clear your mind, and consider your next steps (while also finding helpful loot). Playing solo (multiplayer definitely makes things quicker) got me to the final objective after [u]150 hours[/u], with my save now having a bit over 160 hours after getting all achievements. If I weren't going for 100%, took some shortcuts to get through objectives quicker, and explored less, 100 hours could be feasible. But those hours weren't unbearable (otherwise I wouldn't have gotten to the end yet!) On the contrary, the experience is quite [i]relaxing[/i] as the game [b]expects you to take your time[/b] and doesn't enforce a sense urgency (for example, there is nothing trying to attack and destroy your factory). Even for the factory itself, it is often better to produce something slowly than to get stuck in analysis paralysis and not produce anything at all (people say the same applies in real life, citation needed). Satisfactory kept me coming back for extended play sessions day after day, to the point that I put as much time in as a [i]full time job[/i] for a few weeks in a row (more enjoyable than my actual full time engineering job, of course). So anyone who's accustomed to losing far too many hours to a factory game will be right at home in Satisfactory. The increased opportunity for aesthetics may be especially appealing for some of you, but the slower and more deliberate (though more relaxing) factory construction and challenges of not having a world grid won't appeal to those who care exclusively about making the biggest factories with as little manual effort as possible. Though for most people in the factory business, there's good times to be had in Satisfactory since you can play it however you like. Oh yeah, and there's [i]kinda a story[/i] too but perhaps the other factory builders were on the right track by not bothering with much story. The few elements of story left me with a lot of questions, very little info to guess at possible answers, and some straight up loose ends that were trying to build up to something but didn't. I don't think a story is necessarily incompatible with a factory game, but Satisfactory didn't do great to build tension around 'what am I being told to make? why am I being told to make it?' and the answers to that are shallow at best. Also worth mentioning that one of the few plot points present means there's basically no post-game, you are completely free to your own devices after the end, which is a bit disappointing when other factory games at least have infinite incremental upgrades to test your production with. Perhaps after a >100-hour playthrough you'll want to be done, but otherwise you'd have to figure out your own arbitrary goals.