If you’ve ever wanted to harness the power of industrialisation, Factorio is certainly the game for you. Stranded on a strange alien world, you must find a way to survive and escape this place using the vestiges of technology left behind by whoever came here first, as well as your own innovations. This is a factory sim with a sci-fi aesthetic and just a touch of exploration mixed in. What starts off simple builds into one of the most engrossing management sims we've played.
It has been more than two years since Factorio first landed on the PC and the Switch version offers a very similar experience to the original. There are lots of different machines to build, outputs to consider, and always the danger of deadly aliens to keep you on your toes. It is one of the best balancing acts we’ve come across in the management sim genre, though there are some issues around how the port plays on Nintendo’s console.
There are times when the dialogue is covered up by the cursor’s instructions on the left side of the screen, for example, which caused us to miss key information about our next objective. The problem is less an issue in Docked mode due to the larger screen, but Handheld mode caused us some frustration. The other issue with this console port is the difficulty in picking out a single item in our sometimes-chaotic factory setup. The joystick doesn’t offer the precision of the keyboard and mouse. The touchscreen is supported, though we found it fairly imprecise outside of the menu, partly due to our suboptimal layouts, perhaps. Regardless, we sometimes found it difficult to pinpoint specific items.
Other issues, like the initial title screen taking a surprisingly long time to load, are less frequent and don’t get in the way of what is a very solid and engaging game. The open-world nature of Factorio means that you’ll spend the bulk of your time finding the perfect factory layout. Having a goal in mind, which can be as simple as building a defensive perimeter up to creating a rocket ship to allow you to escape the planet, is the key to advancing. However, even the best laid-out systems will need to get upgraded when new technologies become available, so you'll constantly be changing and replacing obsolete systems as you go along.
There are some truly wild technologies available for players to research and build in Factorio. From simple conveyor belts to roving death bots, everything has a purpose. Most items are either for the defence of your industrialised area or intended to speed up the production of parts you need to complete research packs and materials. As you increase your production speed, your factory will produce increasing amounts of pollution, which will cause the local wildlife to evolve faster into something better able to kill you. It quickly becomes a race against time, trying to master your industry quick enough to escape the planet without being wiped out by increasingly powerful and aggressive hordes of monsters at your doorstep.
The Freeplay mode in Factorio simply drops you into a vast, randomly generated map with limited supplies. You have to start building your new home from scratch, generating power and materials while keeping yourself safe. We found that ensuring we could protect ourselves, with plenty of ammo for our turrets and firearms, was the best course of action, but there is no real set way to progress through the game, and it will take you a few dozen hours to complete a playthrough.
If Freeplay feels a little overwhelming or aimless for you, then you can try some of the set challenges the game has to offer. These range from timed missions with a limited amount of space available to build to races against other players to build their first rocket. Some of these felt like extended tutorials but for players who have invested dozens of hours into the game, they could be a fun way to mix up the usual formula.
The multiplayer in Factorio allows you to join their friends’ games that are in progress or to invite random players to join their own game, though we had some issues getting the multiplayer to work during our time with it pre-launch. We got disconnected from servers frequently when joining public games, but once we found an online game that was stable enough to join we had a lot of fun getting caught up with their progress. The fact that there is crossplay with PC users means that some of these players' games have been going for hundreds of hours, with complex systems set about to help them escape the world. The cooperative focus of the multiplayer means that everyone is working toward the same goal, passing notes back and forth through the text chat and giving tips on how to design the communal factory.
It is easy to see how people have invested so much time and energy here. The tutorial alone takes at least five hours to play through. It doesn’t do much to hold your hand, giving you a vague set of directions to advance to the next stage. We died several times during the tutorial section of the game simply because we invested our resources into harvesting the wrong materials early and ran out of ammo for our weapons at a crucial point.
The music and visuals here are fairly simple but effective. At times the music will cut out completely and leave you only with the ambient noise of your factory to keep you company, which was surprisingly soothing. As simple as the visuals are, there is an intense satisfaction to be had watching your defences fire up at the approach of alien attackers or seeing a swarm of hoverbots deliver products from one end of your territory to the other.
Despite some slight issues with the layout on Switch, Factorio still does what it sets out to do in this port. It is a fun, deeply complex game with dozens of hours of gameplay before you even start to tackle the challenge maps or the multiplayer mode. If you want a management sim that is more hands-on than most and will provide you with almost endless content, this is one of the best out there.
Conclusion
Like the gears in an engine, everything in Factorio has a purpose. There is little in terms of extras here but what is present in this factory management sim does its job beautifully. Despite some issues with the way the Switch port is presented and controls, these are minor issues in an otherwise stellar game that will have you obsessing over the best possible layout for your factory or wanting to keep playing to see what the next research tree unlocks.
Comments 27
It's great that you guys got a review out for this so quickly, thanks a lot. Any word at all on frame rates? Especially late game with mega bases, am guessing it's basically all good there?
looking forward to play this today or the next days .
Can’t wait to get this today!
I've been looking out for this! Sounds like some simple changes could make this game even better on the Switch!
I hope it gets a physical release.
I can get past the chunkiness on switch, I'm quite used to it at this point, but this review reads like it's quite challenging, I prefer my sims a bit more casual for example, parkosaurus/bear and breakfast. Do you think I should steer clear then it that case?
Man, I played this years ago on PC and didn’t understand it at all.
after purchasing civ 6 and cities skylines for switch at different points during pandemic lockdown, and playing them once despite my dreams that finally I had real time to invest in these kinds of games, I cannot recommend this style of game for Nintendo switch. I don't find them fun at all with a joystick instead of a mouse. just my opinion!
I like the concept of this one though! maybe I'd like it this time...
@Nanami_Ataraxi You can set the difficulty for whatever you want. This game is simply majestic even in that subject. Buy it if management-sim games is your thing.
There is a demo for those on the fence.
@Clark2k
Thankyou, I'm gonna bite then :3
Just a heads-up for people interested in this: the developer has signaled an unwillingness to put the game on sale. Like, ever. It's been out for years on Steam and, afaik, has never been in a Steam sale. The development team behind this game has said the same will be true of any platform the game is on.
So if you want it, there's no sense in waiting for a sale.
Can we expect day one patch?
@Ralizah and it makes sense.
I've been inching through the tutorial on the Steam demo but being able to take it with me or lie in bed with it will make learning this game a whole lot easier.
@Ralizah It's funny that the lack of a sale is why I never got it. Wishlisted for years, but don't play on my computer much so I never got it but figured I would if a sale ever happened.
@Capt_T Any idea on the demo length???
...Wished more devs would give mouse support for these games, we already know the Switch is capable of this. Anyways, ugh, may just get it on Steam since I have the Deck.
@BenAV
Totally agree with you. With thousands of games that run better than this one on Switch, it is too high in my opinion and not what I see as a fair value for that much. I can certainly live without it and enjoy so many other time-sink games instead of this one. At least there is a demo -because no way I'd ever spend that much on eShop download without knowing first, unless it was a sale impulse buy.
@PINKSTER007 if it's the same as the pc one it's longer than some games!
@Sam_Loser2 Yeah, I tend to only pick up older games in sales months or years down the road, once the game's price depreciation has stabilized. If it doesn't drop in price, I generally just... never buy it.
It's one thing for me to pay full price at launch and be part of the conversation surrounding a new game launch. It's another to do so years down the road, at which point the purchase just feels wasteful given the existence of a backlog.
It's why I buy everything I strongly care about at or around launch, with very few exceptions.
In this case, I just appreciate that the developers are publicly open about not wanting to put their games on sale. If I had any significant interest in this, I'd have likely snagged it at launch.
Will keep an eye on this... after playing forager never thought I'd really enjoy this type of gameplay
I don't love the idea that the Dev is against sales apparently. But given the hundreds of hours you can get out of this I think it's fair.
Many first-party Nintendo games can be beaten in under 10 hrs for 60 bucks.
Wow, it’s a couple of cents if you buy it on the Bolivian eShop!
So cheap that the only way to buy it is paying for another cheap game using you credit card that rewards you 3 or more gold coins, and then use the coins to buy Factorio!
A bit torn with this one. I really like the genre in general, but I tend to take my sweet time with games like this which means I'll most likely end up getting constantly wiped out by the local fauna, which wouldn't be fun for me. Those who've played this elsewhere before can (and please do) correct my assumptions if I'm wrong, as it still looks like a game I'd like to play.
@calbeau You can turn off the hostile creatures if you want.
@Wordbonder Thanks for the heads-up. Glad the option's there. That makes me consider it more, though the Switch controls do take some getting used to, based on the demo.
I highly recommend to anyone playing this to use a controller with back paddles on with button remapping. If you can remap A+Y to the back paddles, this will benefit you greatly. This means you can use the analogue to move the cursor as well as use the A+Y buttons. I’m using the 8bitdo Pro2. This has completely changed the game for me. It’s not PC level accessibility but it’s a start.
The only time the game loads is in the boot up screen, loading save files is pretty instantaneous (not sure if it will be longer for bigger save files). It’s no longer than it takes games like Terraria or minecraft (which have god damn long load times). Frame rate has been perfect so far but we’ll see how it goes when the factory grows.
The game is digital heroin and I recommend to anyone with even the smallest interest in resource management/building games. Perfect game to unwind and listen to your favourite music to.
Tap here to load 27 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...