# Factorio 154 Hacker News commenters recommended Factorio and 37 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** A deeply engineered factory-building game that runs huge factories smoothly even on old hardware and swallows hundreds of hours, though some dislike Gleba's spoilage and the heavy automation. ## Why people recommend it - Exceptionally well optimized at scale (6 comments): "Factorio is overall a very well optimized game, and it runs far better on my office notebook than any comparable game." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49850008)) "Factorio is a good example of a game that probably wouldn't exist in the form that it does without a custom engine" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49305465)) "I play on an 8 year old MacBook Pro and with 10k logistics bots it still has smooth graphics and zaro boogs." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48739035)) - Addictive, endless hours of play (4 comments): "Games like Stardew Valley or Valheim or Factorio had very small teams, and rudimentary graphics, and yet offered up countless hours of addictive gameplay" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45846740)) "Factorio is an effective way to keep my brain busy as sometimes I get overwhelmed with my thoughts." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49946462)) "Factorio might be slightly less addictive than crack because I was eventually able to put it down" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47531177)) - Passionate devs, years of updates (4 comments): "My favorite games (Factorio, Noita, Song of Syx to name a few) all share in common devs' passion and expertise." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47827452)) "it had a fully fleshed out game in early access, then they spent another 5+ years adding features and fixes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46217735)) "it's just such an amazing piece of engineering that I think the world deserves to own it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48739844)) - Reshapes thinking about engineering (3 comments): "something Factorio and some later schooling did get right, although the intent was rarely communicated effectively" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47618831)) "Having played through Factorio and a fair amount of GregTech really reframed my viewpoint on energy production" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47964867)) "Factorio fundamentally rewired the way I think about software and engineering more broadly" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49849033)) ## What people warn about - Automation crowds out actual gameplay (3 comments): "Armed with my new library of everything and my auto-placement mod, I destroyed my enjoyment of the game, somehow." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49906544)) "The excessive automation of Factorio as opposed to it being a compliment to a full game always turned me off it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49911444)) "But the literal act of placing objects wasn't the point, yet that's all the game has become." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49906229)) - Gleba spoilage mechanics frustrate (2 comments): "but some folks just don't seem to like very much at all. I don't mind playing on Gleba, per se, but those parts are annoying to me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48736799)) "Gleba was the only planet I really struggled with getting started on, mainly due to the spoilage mechanic." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48737907)) - Huge time sink (2 comments): "the problem with Factorio the flight isn't long enough! and the game bleeds into 100+ hours post-flight." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46921558)) "Factorio might be slightly less addictive than crack because I was eventually able to put it down" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47531177)) - Not realistic industrial engineering (2 comments): "I was underwhelmed when I played it, the game doesn't really capture what makes industrial engineering interesting for me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48318687)) "It's not a good representation of industrial engineering, for sure, but I do like the actual logistics management" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48319592)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Satisfactory](https://hackerapproved.com/p/satisfactory.md): 16 recommend - [Dyson Sphere Program](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dyson-sphere-program.md): 11 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://factorio.com/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Factorio", https://hackerapproved.com/p/factorio/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).