Factorio
Factorio is a game in which you build and maintain factories. You will be mining resources, researching technologies, building infrastructure, automating production and fighting enemies. In the beginning you will find yourself chopping trees, mining ores and crafting mechanical arms and transport belts by hand, but in short time you can become an industrial powerhouse, with huge solar fields, oil refining and cracking, manufacture and deployment of construction and logistic robots, all for your resource needs. However this heavy exploitation of the planet's resources does not sit nicely with the locals, so you will have to be prepared to defend yourself and your machine empire. Join forces with other players in cooperative Multiplayer, create huge factories, collaborate and delegate tasks between you and your friends. Add mods to increase your enjoyment, from small tweak and helper mods to complete game overhauls, Factorio's ground-up Modding support has allowed content creators from around the world to design interesting and innovative features. While the core gameplay is in the form of the freeplay scenario, there are a range of interesting challenges in the form of Scenarios. If you don't find any maps or scenarios you enjoy, you can create your own with the in-game Map Editor, place down entities, enemies, and terrain in any way you like, and even add your own custom script to make for interesting gameplay.
Game Discussion
Steam User 619
I started Factorio as a mere man. A fool. A weak, pathetic human who thought "I'll just play for an hour." That was 4 days ago. My body is in ruins, my mind sharper than ever. I have eliminated all inefficient thoughts. My blood pressure fluctuates in perfect sync with my main bus throughput. The factory must grow.
"it’s just a game."
WRONG.
It is a way of life. Do you think a beaver calls dam-building a game? Do you think an ant optimizes for fun? No. It is war, it is survival. And every second wasted is a lost potential space science pack.
The police came after neighbors reported "mechanical whirring" from my apartment. I explained that my copper smelting arrays required better output. They called me "unstable." Fools. They are blind to the inefficiency all around them.
I tried to return to work. My boss asked for an urgent report. I set up an automated Excel system to generate real-time charts. He said he just needed a PDF. I informed him that the conversion was in a later stage of the production chain. My coworkers tried to make small talk at lunch. They asked about my family. I replied that family unit production was currently outside my scope. I have lost all capacity for normal human interaction.
I no longer dream of love, friends, or companionship. I dream of belts. I dream of robots. I dream of perfect, fluid efficiency.
If an Amazon logistics manager saw my factory, he would fall to his knees and weep — tears of admiration, terror, and unworthiness. His entire career, his vast warehouses, his so-called "efficiency" would seem like the crude fumblings of a caveman smashing rocks together.
Now I am an optimization algorithm wrapped in human skin. A transhumanist entity, devoid of inefficiency. My heartbeat syncs with production ticks, my thoughts run in parallel processing. Emotions? Redundant. Rest? A bottleneck. The only metric that matters is output.
The factory must grow.
Steam User 316
this game feels like having a full-time software engineering job. but the job contributes nothing to society and doesn't pay anything. and you are constantly doing hits of crack cocaine.
I highly recommend this game if you have at least a few mental disorders
Steam User 361
I'm a retired IT guy who used to do a lot of gaming. Back then the gaming platforms with some of the best games were Nintendo 64 and Windows PCs. That's all changed for the most part and I've gone many years without playing FPS or racing games so now my hand-eye coordination is pitiful. So, with the help of my 33-year-old son, I've found that my favorite kind of game(s) are simulations, almost all of which are played with a mouse. I've played a huge number of hours in Factorio and loved every minute of it. Admittedly, I quickly found that playing in "peaceful" mode was a necessity. Factorio requires quite a bit of thought particularly early on and having to constantly battle the bugs was simply too stressful and kept me from enjoying it to its fullest. I have to give big kudos to the developers for realizing that not every potential gamer has to be constantly threatened with enemies to kill in order to enjoy a game. I now have more than a thousand hours invested in it and it's never failed to keep me entertained every time I start it up. That adds up to a whole lot of fun for very, very little cost. I can easily see myself playing for a few more thousand hours. There's always something new to learn and a new factory to be built bigger and better than the last one. I have to run now. I'm building a new train system to get my materials to a new area to start the next one. I love it!
Steam User 358
Don't buy this game... No really I mean it don't buy it. drugs might seriously be an easier addiction to break. Your life is enough. You enjoy showering and friends and touching grass... ... ... Th... The... The Factory Must Expand... ... ... The Factory Must Expand... The Factory Must Expand. The Factory Must Expand. The Factory Must Expand.
Steam User 297
You know that game you bought years ago on a whim, played once, and then completely forgot about?
Then one day, you hit a rough patch in life and you're just looking for a little escape.
And suddenly, you remember that game, Factorio.
"Let’s give it another try," you think.
Just for a bit. Build some factories. Automate some stuff.
A weekend, at most.
That was 8 months ago.
It starts simple. Mining some iron. Automating the steam engines. Getting red and green science.
Then black science. Killing biters to expand.
Then comes oil.
Oil was threatening my intelligence, pounding at my confidence. But with some help from my favourite Polish Factorio player, I managed to stay on top.
And then came trains.
I like trains. Trains should be fun, right?
Right?
Wrong.
The fact that “Factorio Train Tutorial - Absolute Basics” is an 86 minute video should tell you enough.
After hours of watching tutorials on train signals, I finally got my train network functioning. Barely.
Then, just when I felt the final sciences were within reach, I learned about this thing called ratios.
And whatever the definition of “ratio” is… I quickly realised that whatever I’d been building was not it.
So I did what any sane person would do:
I built thousands of construction robots and tore down everything I had created so far, just to rebuild it. In ratio.
That little detour ended up taking over 40 in game hours.
At this point, I haven’t left my house in days. I’ve spent more time inputting numbers into a ratio calculator than I’ve spent sleeping.
My family is starting to worry about my obsession with Factorio, but they don’t understand.
I can stop anytime I want.
I just have to fix this little bottleneck first.
At this point, I don’t know what life is anymore without hearing Trupen talk about oil processing, or Nilaus explain city blocks.
And yet, I’ve never felt more in control. Every problem is solvable. Everything is automated. Every part of the factory… works.
Sort of.
Eventually, I launched the rocket. The “end” of the game.
I watched it soar into the sky. The culmination of countless hours of planning, designing, and rebuilding.
I sit back. Take a deep breath.
Maybe now, I can finally take a break.
I close the game. I feel at peace.
I check my phone. There’s a notification on my screen:
“Factorio: Space Age has just released!”
Steam User 285
Factorio:
— Where Fun Meets Conveyor Belt Nightmares
Review:
I thought Factorio would be a quick, fun distraction. Now, 500+ hours later, I’m dreaming about conveyor belts, blueprinting factories in my head, and wondering why I can’t be this organized in real life.
Why It’s Awesome:
You start alone and end up turning an entire planet into your factory playground.
Watching machines work together is oddly satisfying—until one belt ruins everything.
“Just one more conveyor” is a lie. You’ll be up at 3 a.m. building the perfect setup.
Funny Realizations:
Pollution? Eh, who cares… until the biters show up, then it’s panic mode.
Conveyor spaghetti is a real thing. One wrong belt, and your factory turns into chaos.
Multiplayer is chaos. Either you’re building together like pros or screaming about why coal is in the copper line.
Little Problems:
This game makes you feel smart—right until you realize your belts go in circles.
Biters aren’t just enemies—they’re nature’s way of telling you, “You’re the problem.”
Final Thoughts:
Factorio isn’t just a game; it’s a way of life. Build, automate, and completely lose track of time. It’s fun, frustrating, and somehow, I can’t stop playing.
Rating: 9/10 – "500 hours in, and it’s still a chaotic experiment that somehow went right."
Steam User 214
I figured it's about time that I reviewed this game.
Whether or not this game is for you, Factorio is undeniably one of the best polished games that has ever been made. Bugs, when found, are rarely more than minor quirks, and are promptly fixed when reported. I've seen cases where a bug has been reported on reddit (not even the right place to do so), and a patch was released within a few hours.
In terms of gameplay, Factorio scratches a certain itch that very few games provide. While it can seem intimidating at first, It actually does a very good job of leading the player step-by-step through what is needed. It does not, however, hold your hand. You are expected to figure some things out, and If you're the type of gamer who expects everything to unfold in a linear "this is the right thing to do" manner, you'll be disappointed.
I'd expect that my play time alone should indicate my thoughts on the game. In short, If you enjoy puzzle-solving, and find yourself getting "nerd-sniped" when confronted with an interesting conundrum, then you should pick this up and give it a go. Just, don't do so when you have a looming deadline. Factorio has a habit of causing unintentional time-travel, when you sit down to play it for a couple of hours after the evening meal, only to find that it's suddenly 4am.