I have an extremely busy life. As such, I put off playing Satisfactory when I saw it on PC. I desperately wanted to play it, but I knew that it would take over my life! Automation, exploration, combat, base building, and survival elements combine to deliver an addictive game that absorbs your life. Roll on November 2025, and I have no way to escape this drug addiction of a game. I’d love to say I’m desperate for a way out, but I’m not. I’m proud to say I’m hooked, and I don’t think there is a way to break the habit.
Coffee Stain has developed and published this incredible adventure survival affair. It can be enjoyed alone or with others. Unsurprisingly, this is brilliant either way. However, I had a much better time when I was messing around with my friends. Additionally, as there are plenty of resources to gather, teamwork reduces the sense of grind. Therefore, if you can team up with like-minded individuals, you’ll have a phenomenal time.
Satisfactory has a tongue-in-cheek mindset.
I love it when a game has wisecracking robots and a dry sense of humour. Luckily, Satisfactory delivers this by the bucketload. ADA is your robot assistant who loves to tell odd jokes and deliver wildly sarcastic one-liners. However, this AI companion is also deadly serious. They are owned by the megacorporation FICSIT Inc. This huge powerhouse hires faceless Pioneers to complete their work.
This is where you step in. You are tasked with rebuilding humanity on the huge planet called MASSAGE 2(B-B)b. It may not be the catchiest of names, but it matters not. What matters are the resources and your ability to gather them. As a Pioneer, you are responsible for every task you encounter. Killing aliens, exploring the planet, finding new elements, and mining resources. Furthermore, you must build bases, manage your energy supply, and build never-ending conveyor belts.
Incredible progression.
Working through the early stages is a walk in the park. After all, the game gives you a pleasant tutorial that highlights the fundamentals. After this, you are left to your own devices. This is where Satisfactory unfolds nicely. With a large array of resources to find and many ways to shift your goods, you are free to do as you wish. Furthermore, you’ll need to create plenty of new items and buildings if you are to progress.
The progression system focuses on tiered levels. As each is unlocked, you are given new buildings to play with. These items may seem irrelevant, but they are not. Each one offers a new way to gather resources, store items, or shift goods. Additionally, there are quality of life improvements that reduce grind, increase output, and make things much easier. Subsequently, you must learn to balance your production chain to get the best out of every situation.
Exploration is key.
Moving around the giant planet can seem unnerving. After all, dying is never fun, and failure isn’t really an option. Yet, something is rewarding about finding new areas, new elements, and new ground to build more factories. More factories = more resources, and more resources = higher-tiered items. Accordingly, you must venture into the deep to unlock new resources and move through the game.
Satisfactory looks great.
Offering 3 different performance modes was a great move. You can select 60 FPS, 40 FPS (120 Hz or higher displays), or 30 FPS. This approach lets gamers focus on what graphical performance they want. I stuck with the middle ground, and this worked well for me. Although 40 FPS may seem low to some people, I was happy with the consistent frame rate and lack of issues.
Visually, Satisfactory looks great. There were occasional bugs, and building parts clipped the scenery regularly. However, I didn’t care. It didn’t impact the game, and in most cases, it made it easier to get what you wanted done. Purists may get a little annoyed, but they’ll have to suck it up. Ultimately, this game is absolutely huge and a few minor issues for a huge range of buildings, moving parts, and resources is a small price to pay.
The audio combines weird ambient sounds with alien noises. Alongside this, you’ll enjoy an array of dry and sarcastic messages from your friendly AI companion. This odd juxtaposition shouldn’t have worked, but it did. The result is an amusing soundscape that captures the sense of despair and the alien world perfectly.
Incredible controls.
A PC to console port can be messy. Thankfully, Satisfactory works incredibly well with a gamepad. Yes, there is a bit of a learning curve, and you will fail a lot. However, this is part of the joy of this genre. Managing resources, building new structures, and manufacturing products can be done manually or with the help of automation. Either way, you will not struggle with the controls or the UI.
Replay value and longevity are off the charts. If you hate people, you could spend the rest of your life alone on this alien world and never get bored. Alternatively, you could team up with your friends and build mega structures that take over the alien world. Your conveyor belts will snake from area to area as you ship vast quantities of materials to the megacorporation. It is time-consuming but unbelievably addictive.
Satisfactory is the game that keeps giving.
The developer has not finished with Satisfactory. It is a game that epitomises the idea of a game that keeps giving. New ideas, new resources, new events, and much more. This conveyor belt of ideas helps to keep you coming back for more. Accordingly, this will get under your skin, and you will lose your life to its crazy alien ways. It is brilliant, and I recommend getting your copy here! Can you keep the corporation happy? Dig for resources, build crazy structures and let technology carry the load.
