Recent reviews by wake

Satisfactory was my introduction to the automation/factory genre. I tried to start it a few times during early access but always bounced off once the complexity starts to ramp up. I finally gave it a real go right after the Nuclear update in EA, deciding that I would use online guides to get a starter factory up and running and get past that initial phase of the game, and I'm so glad I did. I finished the EA content on my own and loved every minute of it.

The 1.0 launch gave me an excuse to start over, and it was an even better experience. The new (unlockable) cloud-storage system they added almost entirely gets rid of the headache of ferrying over tons of concrete and resources when you want to build a new, big factory, since your build tool will automatically pull from resources you have stored in that system. It's cleverly designed so it doesn't trivialized the factory logistics management, though, as you cannot automate pulling resources from it, and there's a limit to how much of each resource can be stored and how quickly they upload.

I have since played basically all of the other big players in the genre: Factorio, Dyson Sphere Program, and Shapez 2. While I thoroughly enjoyed each of them, Satisfactory remains my true love.

If you have even a passing interest in automation-related games, you owe it to yourself to give this a shot. In my opinion, there are 3 significant difficulty spikes in the game: an hour or two into the game when you start building things using the products of other built things, then the shift from early- to mid-game when you unlock oil production and have to deal with unwanted byproducts, and then aluminum production when you have to deal with a production chain that uses byproducts from later steps as inputs to earlier steps in the line. When (not if) you get stuck or overwhelmed, either give it some time to internalize everything or seek out one of the incredibly useful YouTube guides out there. It's worth it to get over the hump, though.

And don't forget about the MAM. Its upgrades are essential and can make things much smoother.

Note: The game is currently in dev limbo, as the company making it has been shuttered. This really sucks, because the game was legitimately becoming very good (albeit very slowly). Therefore, I can't recommend this anymore.

Original review below:

The For Science! Update has totally changed this game and my opinion of it. Before the update, I had a combined 50ish hours of playtime, spread pretty evenly since EA launch day in February 2023, and the "game" (literally just the bare-minimum sandbox, before now) was a hot mess. Performance was terrible (even the most powerful gaming PCs out there couldn't maintain 60+fps), bugs everywhere, basic things like re-entry heating (or thermals in general) were missing, etc.

The Science update added what is basically a campaign, with missions and a tech tree to gradually unlock all the parts. It also brought pretty massive performance jumps, heating/thermals (though they definitely need some tweaking and are still in a pretty rough, inconsistent state), and a slew of bugfixes, including a short-term, band-aid solution for the "wobbly rockets" issue (this alone makes flying rockets WAY more fun).

I have now completed the campaign missions, and the only side mission I have yet to do is the surprisingly ambitious Eve return trip with 10 Kerbals on-board (Eve is easily the most difficult place to land and return from, as it has a very thick atmosphere and almost twice the surface gravity of Kerbin); it's often considered the "final boss" of KSP1). I'm waiting on that one until heating has been improved a bit.

Is this game worth $50? To me, absolutely. To people new to this type of game, I would wait. The tutorials are great and walk you pretty smoothly through what is a pretty steep orbital mechanics learning curve. The campaign missions, IMO, are probably aimed at players like me as opposed to learning players, as I think the difficulty curve makes a slightly too-steep jump after the 4th or 5th mission, asking you to do interplanetary landings at very specific spots.

There are definitely still big issues with the game, but I've put over 130 hours into the new update and have only reached the rage-quit frustration point once (pre-Science update, I was never able to make it longer than an hour or 90 minutes). For the first time since the gameplay footage started coming out in the weeks leading up to the EA release and the state of the game became clear, I've been genuinely excited to play this game.

I'm so, so glad this is turning around and slowly winning the community over, and I now can't wait for Colonies, Interstellar, and multiplayer!

First, my D1/D2 credentials: I've been a player since the D1 launch, but only started really getting hooked with The Dark Below (D1 first expansion). In D1 I have 2345 hours and 796 raid clears, spread out pretty evenly among the 4 raids. In D2 I have 2332 hours and 385 raid clears so far, spread out pretty evenly among 8 of the 9 raids (only 2 Deep Stone Crypt clears; my 4+ year raid team finally collapsed just before Beyond Light, which really hurt my desire to do that raid).

While I haven't yet gotten too far into it, Witch Queen so far has been really good, and it only adds to my belief that the franchise is in the best state it's ever been. That said, it has a notoriously steep learning curve, quickly overwhelming new players who aren't willing or able to play with someone who can show them the ropes, and while it's not a Monster Hunter-level learning curve with pages and pages of in-game tutorial menus, the new player/onboarding experience isn't ideal.

An important point: D2 is a VERY different game for 100% solo players than for someone with 5+ friends who play. Raids (6-player mechanics-heavy content with anywhere from 2-4 bosses and a couple of encounters) and dungeons (essentially 3-player raids that are a bit shorter) don't have in-game matchmaking – in all likelihood never will – and LFG can be hit-or-miss. The 13 Destiny/Destiny 2 raids have given me lifelong friendships and some of the best gaming experiences I've ever had, but even they aren't immune from the "it's way better with friends" issues.

With the base, older content being free-to-play, there's plenty to do in-game before you have to spend anything (the Vault of Glass raid is free and is a great showcase for what raids have been and can be, since it's a slightly updated release of the very first Destiny raid).

TLDR: D2's in the best state it's ever been. It still feels great to play, it usually runs pretty well, and long content droughts appear to be a thing of the past.