Satisfactory review: It's right there in the name, pal

I have big feelings about Satisfactory. Five years ago, Satisfactory was the 11th indie game I hosted on the Shacknews Twitch channel. It was most certainly rough around the edges and skeletal compared to today, but I still saw so much opportunity I wanted to see come to fruition. Five years later, Coffee Stain is finally pulling Satisfactory out of the kiln and is ready to display it proudly. I’m here for it. My return to this game was everything I could hope it could be. It won’t make you fight off hordes of monsters or survive difficult environments with whatever you find. Instead, it’s a relaxing industrial sim sandbox that will output as much as any given player puts in.

This planet isn’t going to industrialize itself

You work as an operative for a company known as FICSIT, which prepares undeveloped and resource-rich planets for industrial exploitation. You go down to an environment of your choosing between four biomes and get to work on building an industrial program that will legitimize all your hard work. The end result of that is Project Assembly, which builds an orbital bridge for materials to be transported off-world. Getting to that illustrious step, however, is going take a lot of time and planning.

I think Satisfactory guides players into its routines quite well. The game gives new players a big and intricate tutorial that teaches them the basics of resource harvesting, equipment creation, machine building, component production, and the powering, positioning, and programming it takes to get a simple automated assembly line going. By the time players get through all that, not only will they understand the basics of what they can do, but they will also have a basic factory built from where they can expand as they unlock new tiers of construction and equipment. If you’re not a newbie, Satisfactory also lets you skip all of the tutorial stuff and start at Tier 1 construction with all of the tutorial building and supplies unlocked automatically, which is nice for returning industrialists that just want to get going.

I think there’s going to be a moment for every player who’s never played Satisfactory before where they get past the tutorial and are overwhelmed with the options that open up to them. Unlocking Tier 1 and Tier 2 construction offers base building options like walls, flooring, stairs, and watchtowers, as well as multi-floor product conveyer belts and vertical and horizontal transference methods. That, in of itself, definitely made me sweat and realize, “Oh boy, guess we’re gonna throw it at the wall and see what sticks,” the first time I experienced it.

But that’s the beauty of Satisfactory

The moment that you start unlocking build Tiers and are set on your way to complete Project Assembly, Satisfactory becomes a give-and-take that will reward you as much as you put in. This is an intricate toy box of parts that can be arranged in countless fashions. I would say by the time you’re ready to finish Project Assembly, no player’s factory networks will look entirely the same. The opportunity for expression, whether cold, calculating, and pragmatic, or ditsy, fly-by-the-seat, and cattywampus, is far too great in a variety of ways. It’s just also kind of scary and I feel Satisfactory will be daunting to players that come in without a friend, which is easy enough since there’s co-op play.

The work Coffee Stain has done on visual design is just splendid as well. The move to Unreal Engine 5 looks like it paid off in great measure. The biomes look beautiful and are relaxing to be surrounded by as you fiddle with your machines or go out for new resources. There’s just enough wildlife about to give the planets some semblance of life and there’s even modes to turn off certain kinds of critters you don’t want to see (the eight-legged kind). The machinery is, of course, the star of the show, and shines with a variety of animations and life as it reflects the sun and throws off sparks left and right. This game is gorgeous and relaxing whether you’re out in the wilds or navigating the hustle and bustle of your industry.

There is so much here that I’m happy to have seen evolved or grown in Satisfactory since I first played it, but it’s not a perfect experience. As I said, it’s entirely a game based on your creative strategizing and what you give is what you get. It doesn’t really have a fail state (even though you can be attacked and killed by beasts, but then you just respawn and move on), and it doesn’t demand much more than continually collecting the resources you need to unlock the next big thing.

There’s also a bit of a drag before you get some late game unlocks. For example, it’s hard to efficiently collect a variety of resources and make the industry you need to transport them back and forth with reasonable effort early in the game. Your machines also start out slow in processing resources into new materials compared to you doing it yourself at your work bench. Ultimately, I think the later rewards of assembly and building speed increases level that out, but getting there feels like a bit of a drag in the beginning hours. That said, I almost always felt the payoff to reach a milestone was worth it in this game.

Nothing like a little strategic automation to start the day

It’s surreal to see a game I played in my first year of work at Shacknews finally find its way to that Version 1.0. I couldn’t be happier for Coffee Stain after its lengthy journey, but it helps that this is a really dang good sim, and a true creative sandbox. I think the freeform nature of Satisfactory is both its greatest power and its most intimidating offering, simply because the sheer lack of guidance can leave players directionless and overwhelmed, especially as you wait and stew on it while resources bake in the early game. However, the sheer beauty of Satisfactory as you slowly expand a little base into a highly programmed and automated industrial machine is a neat and rewarding process, and if you have a friend or two to bring along, all the more fun.

This review is based on a PC review copy supplied by the publisher. Satisfactory came out of early access for its Version 1.0 on PC on September 10, 2024.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.