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Satisfactory is officially released, officially a scary wonderful time sink

Even people with 1,000 hours in the game are still learning about it.

Kevin Purdy – | 154
Where are the gentle creatures and native plants you first saw when you landed? More importantly, could this conveyer belt run on a shorter path? Credit: Coffee Stain Studios
Where are the gentle creatures and native plants you first saw when you landed? More importantly, could this conveyer belt run on a shorter path? Credit: Coffee Stain Studios

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 September 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.

Up to four players can explore, gather, and argue about optimal workflows together.
Up to four players can explore, gather, and argue about optimal workflows together.
The exhaust from your efforts surely won't affect things long-term. Keep building.
The exhaust from your efforts surely won't affect things long-term. Keep building.
The control panel for a nuclear power unit. Enough said.
The control panel for a nuclear power unit. Enough said.

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 HUB (Habitat and Utility Base). Your second job is to upgrade your HUB 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.

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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? What is a "Space Elevator" and where does it take things? 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 to 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.

Coffee Stain Studios' 1.0 release trailer for Satisfactory.

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.

This post was updated at 12:45 p.m. to modify a reference to the Space Elevator.

Listing image: Coffee Stain Studios

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Kevin Purdy Senior Technology Reporter
Kevin is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering open-source software, PC gaming, home automation, repairability, e-bikes, and tech history. He has previously worked at Lifehacker, Wirecutter, iFixit, and Carbon Switch.
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