This has been a tough assessment to jot down. Not as a result of I do not know what to say, however as a result of each time I dip again into Satisfactory to lookup an merchandise title or affirm some element, I discover myself checking in on the state of my workshop, only for a second, after which a number of hours have out of the blue flown by. That’s the magic of this seemingly benign, inexplicably alluring manufacturing unit simulator. Whether or not I’m pulling my hair out making an attempt to troubleshoot an issue on the manufacturing unit ground or working away from very disrespectful fireball-spitting aliens, each second spent in this superbly complicated simulator has been worthwhile. Combining the creativity and exploration of Minecraft with the spreadsheet-inducing planning and optimization of Factorio, Satisfactory isn’t solely one of the best recreation I’ve performed this yr, however my favourite automation recreation of all time – and that’s with out even having reached its last engineering challenges after going onerous on a contemporary world in its 1.0 construct for greater than 90 hours. Except the ultimate stretch of leveling up my manufacturing unit takes an unexpectedly nightmarish flip for the more serious, thus far Satisfactory has been an unbelievably good time.
Satisfactory is an instantly compelling manufacturing unit simulator the place you and as much as three buddies are dropped on an alien planet and instructed you have to set up a base and produce more and more sophisticated supplies and launch them into outer house to appease your boss. So as to take action, you’ll want to reap pure sources, develop new applied sciences, and change into a grasp of conveyor belts, pipelines, and finally even locomotive operations as you triumphantly develop your tiny headquarters right into a planet-encompassing labyrinth of shifting components. Increasingly more is requested of you as you go, and what begins out as a easy technique of gathering leaves and mining iron to make fundamental instruments rapidly spirals right into a convoluted whirlwind of refineries, manufacturing vegetation, and nuclear energy grids, the place you’re producing every thing from laptop chips to rocket gas.
For those who’re questioning how in the heck meeting line optimization may probably be enjoyable, I perceive your confusion. However in the identical method that one thing like No Man’s Sky offers you a ton of artistic freedom whereas offering irresistible objectives to chase alongside the best way, Satisfactory by no means stops supplying you with thrilling new causes to maintain taking part in I can not fathom the variety of occasions I promised myself I’d sign off after I tweaked only one thing more solely to seek out myself nonetheless tinkering away hours later. Every breakthrough second, like determining how oil refineries work and beginning the manufacturing of plastic, organically results in the following mountain to climb, like crafting a rifle and producing ammo with the byproducts of mentioned refineries. Earlier than you recognize it, you hear these alarming morning chirps from birds outdoors your window and understand you’ve made a mistake.
Managing ever extra complicated factories could be fairly daunting at occasions, however Satisfactory does a completely stellar job of nudging you to take small, manageable steps with its guidelines of tasks to deal with, and in no time in any respect you and your pals are managing sprawling operations that might have appeared unfathomable at first. The earliest manufacturing unit I constructed started as just a few buildings scattered concerning the untainted wilderness, which rapidly spiraled right into a horrendous and disorderly net of nonsensically crisscrossing conveyor belts that regarded like a bowl of moist noodles (naturally, I dubbed the settlement Spaghettysburg). That amateurish anarchy is perhaps unintuitive and fewer than optimum, however hey, it will get the job completed, and I victoriously delivered my eminent Spaghettysburg handle to my co-op companions as we launched the fruits of our labor into house amid the mess of mechanical pasta.
Afterward, my crew’s creations turned extra structured and environment friendly, like our coastal oil refinery dubbed Fuel City or our railway system, which we suspended in the air for max orderliness. The true enjoyable is in watching your mini society evolve as you clear up progressively harder engineering challenges, comparable to optimizing and increasing your energy grid to gas extra amenities so you may produce extra sophisticated components, or working the mathematics on the best ore output of a mining rig to determine probably the most environment friendly option to smelt it into ingots. And you do not have to be a spreadsheet geek like me or dive deep into third-celebration wikis to easily see a conveyor belt stuffed with unused supplies backing up and really feel the irresistible urge to do one thing about it.
As you’re required to make dozens of various elements and juggle numerous demanding processes in order to finish the Milestone deliveries that make up Satisfactory’s bigger development, you’re continuously switching to wherever your consideration is required most, fixing issues and utilizing the brand new know-how you create alongside the best way to make your life simpler. For instance, early on, I constructed comically lengthy conveyor belts to maneuver sources from different components of the world to my most important manufacturing unit, however after unlocking new applied sciences and manufacturing extra superior components, I used to be capable of routinely transport sources with vehicles, trains, and even flying drones, making issues quicker, cleaner, and admittedly, much less chaotic in the method. Going from an unwashed, melee-swinging, conveyor belt-abusing troglodyte to a jetpacking, gun-toting man of tomorrow is immensely satisfying, and makes every onerous-fought battle {of electrical} wiring nicely well worth the bother.
Whenever you’re not juggling the lots of of issues to do along with your manufacturing unit operations, you’ll take to the huge open world to discover the map, battle beasties, evade poison fuel and irradiated zones, discover hidden treasures, and befriend gross-trying lizard doggos to function your loyal companions. Choosing a single, hand-crafted world as an alternative of the extra frequent procedurally generated areas discovered in a few of its friends, Satisfactory’s map has a various set of areas with their very own vibes and precious sources to plunder which might be superior to discover and even higher to colonize along with your hungry machines. As you achieve entry to new instruments, you’ll get higher gear to take out into exploration, which then offers you entry to much more areas. For instance, crafting a fuel masks helps you to navigate zones overrun with toxic clouds, unlocking the jetpack permits you scale cliffs that might in any other case be tough to achieve, and researching explosives permits you to blast by troublesome rocks so you may delve into caves and different blocked off areas. Every of those developments utterly modifications what’s potential whereas out in the world, which in flip permits you to purchase higher supplies to convey again to your base, making a loop of constructing and exploration that simply doesn’t give up.
In fact, it wouldn’t be a lot of an alien planet if there weren’t hostile creatures all over the place who’re fairly in seeing your violent demise. You’ll unlock just a few melee weapons and a few fundamental weapons and ammo, however fight isn’t something particular because it clearly isn’t the supposed focus of Satisfactory. It solely took me just a few hours earlier than I noticed I’d seen nearly every thing fight needed to supply, and whereas it’s not actively dangerous, it’s only a bit forgettable when the constructing and exploration are so nice. The alien wildlife largely appears to be there to supply a contact of hazard at any time when I’m going on the lookout for new sources, nevertheless it’s nonetheless a bit disappointing that there solely appear to be 4 kinds of creatures to come across, every with just a few totally different variations that make them extra lethal however not any extra fascinating.
Taking part in Satisfactory alone could be quite a lot of enjoyable, however when you add buddies to the combination it goes from nice to downright wonderful. Not solely does constructing with buddies can help you get extra completed faster and bounce concepts off each other, however you may every take off to a distinct a part of the map and nonetheless work in direction of shared objectives by constructing infrastructure to move items and gamers from place-to-place. One particularly cool facet is that, when you unlock supernatural alien know-how that defies the legal guidelines of physics (which occurs surprisingly early slightly than being wasted on the endgame alone), you may start sharing sources with each other remotely by importing your bounty to the Dimensional Depot, which anybody can pull objects straight into their stock from at any time. This creates a extremely cool dynamic, the place a participant you haven’t seen in the world for a number of hours can pipe as much as ask for assist with one thing, and you may just about hand them the sources they should clear up their drawback.
If there’s one actual difficulty with Satisfactory, it’s that generally its ambition exceeds its grasp, resulting in a reasonably regular stream of efficiency points and bugs (at the very least on the pre-launch 1.0 construct I had entry to for this assessment). Crashes have been an everyday incidence for my crew, particularly for these becoming a member of my world for multiplayer, and as your manufacturing unit grows to an absurd dimension and complexity, you’ll begin to see pop-in, bizarre textures, and framerate dips with rising frequency. I performed on three separate PCs of various ranges of energy, and although every may run Satisfactory superb on the outset, by the top solely my Ryzen 9 7950X3D/RTX 4090 may run it with out at the very least average points. You’ll possible want a reasonably highly effective rig to run this one with consistency, however even when it struggled a bit on two of my PCs, these issues have been solely ever an annoyance slightly than something so extreme that they made me need to cease taking part in.
I’ve performed over 90 hours of Satisfactory’s 1.0 launch, and I have already got a reasonably good concept of the place I stand with it at this level, however I’ve nonetheless obtained a last spherical of uber-difficult endgame duties to finish earlier than I’ve seen all of it and might confidently ship my verdict. For now, I can let you know that there’s a complete heckuva lot to take pleasure in. Now, when you don’t thoughts, I actually ought to get again to it – these manufacturing pipelines aren’t going to optimize themselves!
