Factorio essentially kickstarted the genre. Satisfactory was inspired by it. I totally dig what Satisfactory has done but having a blueprint that is proven to work is skipping a lot of risk.
There is an inherent tradeoff between graphics and gameplay. Both have good reasons to focus on. Factorio has optimized it’s graphics and logic to an insane degree. Far beyond what is typically expected of an AAA game. You just don’t see that directly, since it provides value by absence. The game doesn’t even start to slow down until you are hundreds or thousands of hours in.
There is a reason AAA games frequently run badly even on top tier hardware, it’s because they prioritize graphical fidelity over all else. Optimization is often an afterthought, since programmers are expensive, and optimization doesn’t provide the immediately apparent value that graphics or new features do. Factorio had to take that risk though, because the game would not be fun if it couldn’t scale past the first ten hours.
Highly detailed graphics are very skillfully produced as well, but it’s a misunderstanding that a game’s code cannot be of similar quality and depth. A sort of graphical AAA vs functional AAA. Factorio took a lot of highly skilled programmers to pull off, while a graphically intensive game put those resources into their artists.
There’s some key details to not forget.
Factorio essentially kickstarted the genre. Satisfactory was inspired by it. I totally dig what Satisfactory has done but having a blueprint that is proven to work is skipping a lot of risk.
There is an inherent tradeoff between graphics and gameplay. Both have good reasons to focus on. Factorio has optimized it’s graphics and logic to an insane degree. Far beyond what is typically expected of an AAA game. You just don’t see that directly, since it provides value by absence. The game doesn’t even start to slow down until you are hundreds or thousands of hours in.
There is a reason AAA games frequently run badly even on top tier hardware, it’s because they prioritize graphical fidelity over all else. Optimization is often an afterthought, since programmers are expensive, and optimization doesn’t provide the immediately apparent value that graphics or new features do. Factorio had to take that risk though, because the game would not be fun if it couldn’t scale past the first ten hours.
Highly detailed graphics are very skillfully produced as well, but it’s a misunderstanding that a game’s code cannot be of similar quality and depth. A sort of graphical AAA vs functional AAA. Factorio took a lot of highly skilled programmers to pull off, while a graphically intensive game put those resources into their artists.