Satisfactory is now available in early access

Co-op factory-building game Satisfactory is now available in Early Access on the Epic Store. It'll stop you a bit short of completing the full game for now—Coffee Stain will be making bug fixes and improvements before adding the later building tiers as it completes its early access roadmap.

You won't have to worry about losing progress, though, as saves should be compatible with each new version. I played a bit of an alpha version with Chris, and we had a good time setting up efficient (or extremely inefficient) production lines, though it felt like there was still a decent amount of work to be done on the game. A few annoying bugs caught us, and when we ran out of explicit goals, I lost interest in making more and more screws and metal sheets, so the fun right now feels very dependent on the built-in tasks, as opposed to building for the sake of it. The animations are really nice, though, and we had fun exploring (me surfing on top of Chris' truck while he attempted to run over local wildlife, mostly).

These are things Coffee Stain will have time to work on during this early access period, which doesn't have a set length. Satisfactory is available for $30/£27.

Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the '80s and '90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call "boomer shooters" now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that's right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he's focused on the site's news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.