Factorio

Factorio is a game about building industrial production lines and keeping them running efficiently. You mine ore, research technologies, build factories, set up automated production lines — all while trading blows with the alien bugs.

You start from nothing, the hard way. Chopping trees with an axe, swinging a pickaxe at ore, handcrafting inserters and conveyor belts — but grinding along like that gets you absolutely nowhere.

So you'll need efficient large-scale power plants, a sprawling petrochemical industry, a magnificent fully automated production chain, and an army of robots running errands for you, until you become the true master of a resource-rich industrial empire. But there's always a mob out to get you. The native bug swarms on this planet are not happy about you messing around in their backyard, and one day they'll band together to come after you. So build weapons, set up defenses, and prepare to put down the uprising — show them who's really in charge.

In multiplayer you can join different factions and, led by the true masters of the craft, divide up the work with your friends to build a magnificent industrial park together. Factorio's mod support has drawn designers from all over the world to polish and reinvent the game — from tweaks and quality-of-life helpers to complete overhauls, an ever-evolving stream of mods keeps the fun coming.

When I first started playing:

A few hours in:

After starting a fresh map:

Final verdict: what a damn grind.