Satisfactory, the sprawling 3D factory optimization videogame, is getting turned into a decidedly more compact board game, thanks to a new Gamefound campaign launching later this year. One to four players will race to be the first to complete an all-important space elevator while extracting resources from an alien world, and compete to earn the coveted title of ‘Employee of the Month’.
The video trailer shows off some of the components and hints at mechanics. The world is divided into hexes which contain different terrains and offer different resources or perhaps penalties. Each payer’s worker meeple will traverse this environment spreading industrial productivity and factories as they go.
There’s a separate series of tracks that represent your supply chain with colored cubes – exactly how they work isn’t clear, but the tracks they sit on are little production lines, which is very cute. And there are new technology cards to research, though again, the close-up shots in the trailer video don’t give us much indication how they’ll work.
The new board game leaves one major element of the videogame in cyberspace: the third dimension. Constructing the towering 3D supply lines from the videogame would need expensive components and complex rules, so I think this is actually a very sign for this adaptation.
One reason videogame adaptations don’t always make for the best board games is that, often, the designers try to cram all of the videogame features into the board game, regardless of how much they contribute to the gameplay. This only really works when the videogame itself is practically a board game, as in titles like Slay the Spire or Dorfromantik.
Satisfactory: The Board Game is being published by Mood Publishing, who have a track record for adapting videogames onto the tabletop. Their previous titles include Valheim, Deep Rock Galactic, and an as yet unfulfilled Gamefound campaign for Hitman. Their two released games reviewed well, though we haven’t tested them.
Are you a Satisfactory fan – if so, what do you want to see in the board game? Let us know in the Wargamer Discord community!
