Satisfactory – PC First Look

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Satisfactory is a game I’ve been looking forward to trying out since I first saw the reveal video from E3 2018. Developed by Coffee Stain Studios for the PC Satisfactory is a first-person open world factory sim. Satisfactory is currently only available on the Epic Games Store, but it may come to Steam in the future.

Gameplay

Once you begin Satisfactory, You find yourself in a drop pod on your way down to the surface of an alien planet. You’re then played a little introductory video on the screen in your pod stating that your objective is to build a factory from nothing. The factory is being made to send resources back to Ficsit Inc. for some mysterious purpose. Once you’ve landed, the first thing you notice is how beautiful the landscape is, but we’ll get to that in a minute. After breaking down your pod for materials to make your factory HUB, You have to find a location near resources to build. In the beginning shipments of mined materials are sent off to unlock milestones. These milestones give you access to better technology and more recipes so you can begin to automate mining and construction. Once you get the HUB fully upgraded, you are tasked to build the Space Elevator to send more advanced materials and continue your milestone progress. During this process, you have to scout the areas around your factory. Be careful though; some creatures aren’t happy with your being there.

Satisfactory follows a reasonably simple gameplay loop: Mine, Build, Ship, Repeat. The fun comes from trying to tweak the factory layout to get that extra bit of efficiency. Playing with friends helps too, because of the shenanigans you can get up to with multiple people. Multiplayer is also an incredibly efficient way to play, assigning specific tasks to each player if you choose to. That’s more or less how we played, with a bit of goofing off and exploring for things to examine in between.

Satisfactory
The introductory video in the drop pod

Graphics

I said we’d get to this in a minute, So let’s go!
First thing I noticed is how smoothly the game runs. I encountered no framerate issues while playing. The view distance in Satisfactory is pretty far, and the game is just incredible looking. I was playing it in 1080p at ultra (On a GTX 970), and the game was running fantastically. There was only one instance where I had encountered textures not loading in, but I’m fairly certain that was because of a background download taking up my bandwidth when I had been connected to a hosted game. Other than that one issue, it ran amazingly well.

Satisfactory
Bacon agaric. Tastes like bacon and it heals you.

Audio

The soundtrack of the game was incredibly relaxing. It was easy to sit and listen to the steady electronic music, which I did several times when I forgot what I was doing. The music in Satisfactory had a heavy sci-fi vibe to it, which lent itself very well to the setting. All of the factory machines had noises that made it feel like you were on a production line. The only vehicle available so far had a nice sputtery exhaust sound which made me chuckle. I didn’t notice much noise coming from the alien creatures, but then again, I tried to avoid them most of the time because I didn’t yet have anything to properly defend myself but a taser.

Satisfactory
Space Elevator for shipping out crafted materials.

Longevity

It took us several hours to complete the tiers available in the alpha weekend. This isn’t to say the game will be a short one. The milestones all got more difficult as they went up, and there’s always plenty to explore. I am very excited to see how the development progresses, and I will be spending a lot of time playing Satisfactory.

Different biomes on the planet lead to some spectacular vistas

Conclusion

Satisfactory is thus far exactly what I was hoping it would be and its $29.95USD price tag isn’t something I can argue with. If the factory building sim is something that interests you, I highly recommend picking it up. Early access is purchasable now on the Epic Games Store.

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