SkyRig is systems-builder for Factorio sickos set in the skies of a bulging gas giant

If videogames have taught us anything, it's that the individual knows no deeper pleasure than assembling a perfectly optimised assembly line. There's just something narcotic about assembling an exquisite rhythm of inputs and outputs that generates just what you need with no waste and no fuss.

The game comes from Rocket Flair Studios, the same folks putting together Egyptian architect sim Dynasty of the Sands, and I daresay it looks like you'll get a lot of that pleasing, snap-to-grid action you can find in every good city-builder in SkyRig, too. This is about planning ahead, about finessing your schematics down to the last detail or, if you're anything like me, just frantically slapping stuff together to keep up with resource demands before eventually deleting the whole thing and starting over with an actual plan.

So I'm gonna go ahead and guess this will light up the lizard-brain regions of any and every Factorio sicko out there. From the glimpse we get in the trailer, SkyRig is all about putting together long, sprawling pipelines festooned with manufacturing and processing equipment, and watching the whole thing balloon and become infinitely more complex as the demands you have to fulfill get more and more elaborate.

Fulfilling more contracts means building more rigs, building more rigs means using more power, using more power means building more generators, you get the gist. This is that kind of optimisation-brained sim that I have, historically, been an absolute sucker for, and the trailer concluding with a mysterious pledge to "keep going deeper" into the gas giant's atmosphere has me wondering what kind of thing we'll find down there. Cthulhu? Probably a Cthulhu.

No concrete release date as yet, but SkyRig is expected at some point in 2026. Wishlist it on Steam now.

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One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

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