The company that compels you to industrialize an untouched alien planet in Satisfactory, FICSIT, is similar to Portal's Aperture Science or Fallout's Vault-Tec. You are a disposable employee, fed misinformation and pushed to ignore awful or incongruous things, all for the greater good of science, profit, or an efficient mixture of the two.
And yet even FICSIT was a bit concerned about how deep into the 1.0 release of Satisfactory (Steam, Epic Games, on sale until 9/23) I had fallen. I got a warning that I had been playing for two hours straight. While FICSIT approved of hard work, it was important to have some work-life balance, it suggested.
Friends of mine had told me that they had to stop playing Factorio when it began to feel like an unpaid part-time job. Given a chance to check out Satisfactory, I presumed, like I always do, That Could Never Be Me. Folks, it was definitely me. I'm having a hard time writing this post, not because it's hard to describe or recommend Satisfactory. I just stayed up very late "reviewing" it, woke up thinking about it, and am wondering whether enough friends would want to join me that I should set up a private server.
Travel the galaxy, meet interesting creatures, ignore them and automate
You are a Pioneer, working for FICSIT (motto: "We do anything to find short-term solutions to long-term problems"). You are dropped onto an alien planet, with a first-person view, and your first job is to disassemble your landing craft so you can use its parts for a H.U.B. (Habitat and Utility Base). Your second job is to upgrade your H.U.B. so you can build tools and workshops. Your third job is to upgrade it again, unlocking even more tools and workshops. You'll need resources to keep building, like mined ore, fuel for a generator, and, sadly, animal parts for research.
How should you feel about the lush landscape you are slowly stripping away and populating with smoke-belching machines? Is there a greater plan for all this stuff you're making? Why is a "Space Elevator" the end goal? How bad should you feel about putting down animals that charge you as you invade their space?
You might think about these things, but there's a stronger pull on your brain. Can you better optimize the flow of ore from a mining machine into the smelter, onto the tool machine (Constructor), and then into a storage bin? What about your power—do you really have to manually feed your system leaves and wood and turn it off between productions? Are we really balancing the wattage input and clock speed of our machines in our spare time, for fun?
5.5 million copies, a thousand hours, no end in sight
Yes, we are. I have only glimpsed into my future in Satisfactory, and it's already full of excuses for why I didn't get other things done. People with 540 hours into the game are advising me on how to site my permanent factory while I kludge it out with a "starter factory," a wonderfully evocative phrase about human nature. Searching for people with 1,000 hours of experience yields a remarkable number of people who are still asking questions and figuring things out.
One of the things being added into the 1.0 release is a "Quantum Encoder." I have no idea what this is or what it does, but I have a sense of where this is all headed.
Satisfactory launched exclusively on the Epic Games Store, and was one of the very few games that earned enough to actually make Epic some money. Its developer, Coffee Stain Studios (maker of Goat Simulator, publisher of Deep Rock Galactic), cites 5.5 million copies sold since it hit early access in March 2019. With its 1.0 release, the developer has promised "Premium plumbing," such that the toilet in your living quarters "has been updated with an advanced flushing mechanism, providing an extra luxurious worker experience for fans."
Perhaps my one saving grace is that Satisfactory is "Playable," not Verified, on Steam Deck. There are some text and input quirks and video efficiencies to contend with, though I fear the active community offers solutions for all of them. It's up to me, and all of us, to find some work/life/game-work/sleep balance. Time to do your part.
Listing image by Coffee Stain Studios
