izigame.me

The barrier of entry to this game might look incredibly high if you've watched any Factorio content on Youtube or have seen screenshots of peoples' end game bases. That's definitely how I felt when I first decided to give this game a shot when Space Age dropped near the end of 2024. However, I quickly realized how wrong that initial assumption was from my end.
The most daunting thing about booting up Factorio for the first time turns out to be its hotkeys and its sprawling tech tree. In terms of its hotkeys, it's much like any graphic design software where initially some hotkeys seem so unbelievably specific its almost absurd. After some time with the game (in my case, 400 hours in and I'm still picking up new hotkey tricks) you'll probably end up surprised with how naturally you've adapted to their use. So, no rush there.
The tech tree, if you stare at it long enough when you start your first world, might seem a little nauseating. Your mind may spiral a bit trying to understand how you'll prepare to make components, or plan to use structures, that are hours of gameplay down the line from the start. It may help to look at the tech tree as a series of courses that the game will serve you during your playtime instead. The game is gating you, presenting you with a challenge at each step. "How do I stop needing to manually feed all my furnaces and get more smelted products?", "How do I keep up with my demand for gears and circuits?", "How can I improve my power supply and access to distant resources?".
This series of compartmentalized challenges is how this game ropes you in. All of those videos and images you've seen of crazy mega-bases and efficient train networks aren't gated behind some genetic predisposition to being talented at Factorio. Rather, they are the result of approaching each of these small, bite sized challenges the game presents you with as you progress through its tech tree. Before you know it, you'll be producing answers to questions this game asks you that you weren't even aware were a possibility 20 hours prior. The pieces will keep falling into place for you over and over and over again, and after 400 hours playing this game, they haven't stopped for me.
If you let it, Factorio will take you on a journey of endless problem solving, where the problems you solve only grow more complex and where your answers only become more elegant and clever. It comes highly recommended from me, it is one of the most rewarding and fascinating games I have played in my life.
The biggest negative I could assign Factorio is how its post-endgame content functions. With space age especially, what drove me in this game was rounding out and perfecting my main base, along with discovering and conquering new planets and optimizing them as I went along. However, at a certain point, as the tech tree begins to fizzle out into repeatable researches, the end game content simply becomes a game of pushing your production values higher.
This works for some people, but doesn't work for me (at least, not yet). And from what I've seen of the modding community, there are countless ways to customize the game's content to mitigate this issue. I don't think its necessarily a bad thing, how vanilla Factorio concludes, it's just not for me.
I'd very quickly like to endorse a game that does address this issue for me, which is Dyson Sphere Program. While not yet finished, the core gameplay loop is nearly as robust as Factorio's, and I have a far greater desire to engage with that game's endgame than I do with Factorio's. I would highly recommend both of these titles, and I am excited to return to DSP at their next update and see how my experience with Factorio will change how I approach problem solving in that title.
All in all, the unique fervor surrounding this game is definitely earned, and I will spend the rest of my life scratching the itch that Factorio gave me.