Thank you Wube Software LTD. For sending us a review code!

Factorio was successfully funded on IndieGoGo in 2013 and released on Steam’s Early Access in 2016. Four years later, it reached version 1.0 and came out of Early Access with “Overwhelmingly Positive” reviews. You can tell that a lot of thought and love was poured into this game during its eight years in development. The final product is nothing short of a masterpiece.

I must admit that I was taken aback by the game’s lack of guidance during the Early Access days and thought I’d wait for it to be more fleshed out than hammer out a negative review and move on. I’m glad I gave this title a second chance and enjoyed my thirty-six-hour adventure in building a rocket to escape the alien planet my character crash landed on.

The game begins with your character stranded on a planet rich in resources. Your destroyed spaceship has some useful items on it so be sure to scavenge it for parts. Chances are you’ve landed near some coal, stone, iron, and copper deposits. It’s in your best interest head on over there and mine some of it manually and be sure to chop up any trees you see along the way.

While doing everything manually is possible, this game prides itself on automation and that’s what makes this title incredibly fun and rewarding. Your first order of business will be to automate mining coal, stone, copper, and iron. To do that you need diggers, stone furnaces, and grabbers to refill fuel and retrieve finished products and place them in storage containers. While this is all happening, you may as well start researching technologies.

The technology tree in this game is broken down into Automation, Chemical Science, Logistics, Military, Production Science, Utility Science and Space Science. Each category has to have the science pack unlocked before learning any of the new technologies within. Here’s a nice breakdown of the massive technology tree from the 1.0 release. The interface of this game is great and has built-in search functionality for the technology, inventory, and mods.

There’s an impressive community for this game and it shows with the massive number of public and private online servers available. There are also numerous community created mods available to make the game easier or more challenging. Steam achievements will not be earned while you have mods enabled so keep that in mind if you use them.

As you learn about and apply new technologies into your base, you’ll be polluting the planet and agitating the nearby lifeforms. As your technology evolves, they will too and they’ll get more aggressive in the process. I strongly recommend erecting walls and turrets as soon as possible. The turrets will chew through ammo like nobody’s business but laser ones only require electricity. However, you’ll miss out on earning a Steam achievement if you decide to deploy laser turrets. I happily skipped out on that achievement.

Train lovers will enjoy the ability to design their own railways from scratch. Not all of the resources are located nearby so having a means to transport them back and forth comes in handy. While I was proud of my creations and automations, it was nowhere near the complexity of the setup of the one shown on the Steam store page.

It’s funny how fun it is to automate processes to make them more efficient. I often found myself daydreaming of ways to improve things and implement them when I was able to play the game again. It was quite a rewarding experience to build a rocket ship and fly off the planet. To get to that point took a lot of research, mining, and automation. There are Steam achievements for beating the game in fifteen or eight hours, but it took me much longer. The average amount of time is forty, but there is a ton of replay value for this $30 game.

The soundtrack is exceptional and pleasant to listen to. The music is available on Steam for $7 and I may consider picking it up if it goes on sale. The sound effects are fitting and I have no complaints with them.

The 2D pixel art is pretty detailed and you can zoom in and out to your heart's content. I like the “Alt” view that shows you an icon for what’s being made at the assembly plants and what’s inside the various storage boxes.

Morally, there is little to complain about. The insect-like aliens are aggressive and will attack if you get too close to their hives. They’ll also send frequent attack parties to your factories. Hopefully you’ll have turrets in place to stop them in their tracks. When shot, the aliens will bleed. There is a peace mod so violence (and Steam achievements) can be avoided. One of the Steam achievements has the word b*stard in it.

If you enjoy building to your heart’s content, Factorio is a dream come true. There is a bit of a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll soon find yourself hooked. Even after launching a rocket into space you can continue onward and streamline your automations even more. You can also attempt to do speed runs, various mods, or play with or against people online. The possibilities are endless in this title.