Satisfactory is officially launched, officially a wonderful and terrifying pastime.

The company that forces you to industrialize an intact alien planet in Satisfying, FICSIT, is similar to PortalThe science of opening or Radioactive dustVault-Tec. You are a disposable employee, fed misinformation and forced to ignore horrible or incongruous things, all for the sake of science, profits, or an efficient combination of both.

And yet, even FICSIT was a little concerned about how far along the release of version 1.0 was. Satisfying (Steam, Epic Games, on sale until September 23) I had fallen. I was notified that I had been playing for two hours straight. Although FICSIT approved of hard work, it was important to have some work-life balance, he suggested.

Some friends of mine had told me that they had to stop playing. Factorio When it started to feel like an unpaid part-time job, when given the chance to prove it. SatisfyingI assumed, as I always do, that it could never be me. Friends, it was definitely me. I find it difficult to write this post, not because it is difficult to describe or recommend. Satisfying. I stayed up really late “checking” it out, woke up thinking about it and wondering if enough friends would want to join me to set up a private server.

Travel the galaxy, meet interesting creatures, ignore them and automate

You are a pioneer working for FICSIT (motto: “We do our best to find short-term solutions to long-term problems”). You are dropped on an alien planet, with a first-person view, and your first job is to disassemble your landing craft so you can use its parts for a HUB (Habitat and Utility Base). Your second job is to upgrade your HUB so you can build tools and workshops. Your third job is to upgrade it again, unlocking even more tools and workshops. You'll need resources to keep building, such as mined ore, fuel for a generator, and unfortunately, animal parts for research.

How should you feel about the lush landscape you're slowly dismantling and populating with smoke-belching machines? Is there a bigger plan to everything you're doing? What is a “space elevator” and where does it take things? How bad should you feel about killing animals that attack you while invading their space?

You might think about these things, but there’s a stronger pull on your brain. Can you better optimize the flow of ore from a mining machine to the smelter to the machine tool (Builder) and then to a storage bin? What about your power? Do you really have to manually feed your system with leaves and wood and turn it off between productions? Are we really balancing power input and clock speed of our machines? In our free timefor fun?

5.5 million copies, 1,000 hours, no end in sight

Yes, we are. I have only glimpsed my future in Satisfyingand it's already full of excuses not to do other things. People with 540 hours of game time advise me on how to locate my permanent factory while I fix it up with a “starter factory,” a wonderfully evocative phrase about human nature. If we look for people with 1000 hours of experience, we find a remarkable number of people who are still asking questions and trying to figure things out.

One of the things that was added to version 1.0 is a “quantum scrambler.” I have no idea what it is or what it does, but I have an idea of ​​where this is all headed.

Satisfying released exclusively on the Epic Games Store and was one of the few games that made enough money for Epic to make money. Its developer, Coffee Stain Studios (creator of Goat Simulatoreditor of Galactic deep rock), cites 5.5 million copies sold since it hit Early Access in March 2019. With its 1.0 release, the developer has promised “premium plumbing,” so that the toilet in your living room “has been upgraded with an advanced flushing mechanism, providing an extra luxurious working experience for fans.”

Perhaps my only saving grace is that Satisfying is “Playable” – not verified – on Steam Deck. There are some text and input quirks and video efficiencies to contend with, though I fear the active community will offer solutions for all of them. It's up to me, and all of us, to find a work/life/play-work/sleep balance. Time to do your part.

This post was updated at 12:45 pm to modify a reference to the Space Elevator.

Listing image from Coffee Stain Studios