Satisfactory

Factorio's one of my favorite games, so naturally I was waiting for the release of Satisfactory, and jumped straight to playing it as it released. Nearly two months and a hundred hours later, I have finally finished it. It currently sits as the 44th highest rated game on Steam, and I can vouch for it being pretty damn good.

But what is Satisfactory, you ask? It's one of the many automation games that appeared after Factorio's relative success. In fact, it's the only one that actually managed to beat it in popularity so far. It works much the same - set up harvesters for resources, pipes and belts to transport them to crafting machines to make more complicated products, which you then further send to be crafted into even more complicated products, and so on. These products can be used to build more machines to produce even more things even faster, or serve to fill the game's goal to supply the AI with products it asks of you.
It's a fun loop, where you start with a small factory, just producing a few things at a slow rate, and before you know it, you've expanded to thousands of machines across the whole map, with thousands more transport belts zigzagging everywhere, and you barely remembering where everything is and how it all works.

The big improvement, and what probably makes Satisfactory this popular, is that it's 3D and in first person. I think a lot of people find this more approachable, and the game itself also shares many similarities with the survival game genre that has been popular. Compared to Factorio, there is less emphasis on scale and practicality, and more on exploration and aesthetics. Exploring the map gets you alternate recipies by which to make items, and there's enough non-functional building blocks and coloring tools in the game to make all your factories look like works of art, instead of the messes that I love to make.
Unfortunately for it, I will judge it by its gameplay. Aside from the alternate recipes, it doesn't really innovate on the automation genre whatsoever. The 3rd dimension sadly does not provide additional depth to the game, and in fact only reduces the amount of fun you have, because you no longer have to figure out logistics. The first person view makes it very difficult to get an overview of your factory, as placing even a single machine generally covers your entire view. There are no circuit networks or advanced logic options anywhere, which makes certain things, such as proper belt balancing or trains that carry more than one resource, impractical. Worst of all, there are no blueprints (they do exist, but can not be created from existing parts of your factory, and are tiny enough to be practically useless), which means you will have to build everything from scratch every single time.

Overall, while I did have a lot of fun playing it, as a change of pace from the thousand-plus hours I've put into Factorio, unless you care more about base building than automation, I see zero reason to recommend this over Factorio. There's less content, less quality of life, less depth, and basically no reason to go for another run or continue playing after the end of the game, as the map's always the same, and there's nothing to produce after you've completed the game. I suppose it would be a bit hypocritical of me to say I don't recommend this game, since I did have fun for it for almost 100 hours, and everyone else also really loves the game, but I don't think that would have been the case, were I not a fanatical fan of the genre. So, I don't know. I guess I'd recommend it. But try Factorio first, if you haven't.