I saw this game a few times on my "recommended for you" list on both steam and humblebundle. I watched the original trailer but was not really impressed. (the original trailer shows a completed factory, not how to actually get to that point.) But one day I noticed that it had a 98% positive rating on steam... with human nature making it more likely to take the time to write bad reviews instead of good ones, I wondered how that was even possible. Then after watching a youtube video on a different game, autoplay queued up a factorio "let's play" video that I watched. I was hooked.

Factorio is a base building game. You start with nothing but a hand axe and manually build up to the automated factory you see in the trailer. Of course, the true intent is to build your factory through automation, not by hand. Eventually you will build a rocket which will take you off the planet you crash landed on.

Factorio is deep. Factorio is complex. Factorio will keep you sitting in front of your computer until the early morning hours just to get "5 minutes more." Factorio has a steep learning curve, but it is not un-surmountable. There are plenty of tutorial and let's play videos for it, an online beginners guilde, active forum, and wiki. And best of all, you can ignore all the advice and just build it the way you want to build it.

Now that I own it and have played it, I know why the game has such an overwhelmingly positive review feed back... Factorio is fun, it is engaging, and it is well polished. The only reason why it is still early access is because the devs want to add even more to it before a full release. It is very stable and has a lot of existing content. (including multi-player.)

TL/DR... Just buy it now. not convinced? Watch a few videos... play the Demo... then buy it.

UPDATE: 11 months later... Factorio is still a great game. I have over 850 hours playing it now. I still love it. It is still in Early Access, but the devs are still adding more content to the game and enhancing the graphics and UI. Well worth the money you pay for it.

UPDATE: Almost 4 years after I bought it... Factorio 1.0 released today. I expect my nearly 1500 hours of play time to go up even higher. Still a great game and even better than before. Works great with linux too!!! (and always has regardless of video card or distro that I tried.)

UPDATE: 300 hours more played on 1.0 Factorio still rocks... Now anticipating the 1.1 release with its new night lighting effects, and other enhancements. It is supposed to release any day now and I am just as excited for it as any other point release.

I saw this game a few times on my "recommended for you" list on both steam and humblebundle. I watched the original trailer but was not really impressed. (the original trailer shows a completed factory, not how to actually get to that point.) But one day I noticed that it had a 98% positive rating on steam... with human nature making it more likely to take the time to write bad reviews instead of good ones, I wondered how that was even possible. Then after watching a youtube video on a different game, autoplay queued up a factorio "let's play" video that I watched. I was hooked. Factorio is a base building game. You start with nothing but a hand axe and manually build up to the automated factory you see in the trailer. Of course, the true intent is to build your factory through automation, not by hand. Eventually you will build a rocket which will take you off the planet you crash landed on. Factorio is deep. Factorio is complex. Factorio will keep you sitting in front of your computer until the early morning hours just to get "5 minutes more." Factorio has a steep learning curve, but it is not un-surmountable. There are plenty of tutorial and let's play videos for it, an online beginners guilde, active forum, and wiki. And best of all, you can ignore all the advice and just build it the way you want to build it. Now that I own it and have played it, I know why the game has such an overwhelmingly positive review feed back... Factorio is fun, it is engaging, and it is well polished. The only reason why it is still early access is because the devs want to add even more to it before a full release. It is very stable and has a lot of existing content. (including multi-player.) TL/DR... Just buy it now. not convinced? Watch a few videos... play the Demo... then buy it. UPDATE: 11 months later... Factorio is still a great game. I have over 850 hours playing it now. I still love it. It is still in Early Access, but the devs are still adding more content to the game and enhancing the graphics and UI. Well worth the money you pay for it. UPDATE: Almost 4 years after I bought it... Factorio 1.0 released today. I expect my nearly 1500 hours of play time to go up even higher. Still a great game and even better than before. Works great with linux too!!! (and always has regardless of video card or distro that I tried.) UPDATE: 300 hours more played on 1.0 Factorio still rocks... Now anticipating the 1.1 release with its new night lighting effects, and other enhancements. It is supposed to release any day now and I am just as excited for it as any other point release.