Factory Games Like Factorio: 14 Automation Picks on Steam

The best games like Factorio share one feeling: the moment a messy hand-built line turns into a humming machine that runs without you, and you immediately spot the next bottleneck. If you love chasing ratios, rebuilding a base because it could be cleaner, and watching belts carry everything from iron plates to rocket parts, these picks keep that loop going in new settings.

Here is the quick version, strongest fits first.

What makes Factorio what it is

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Factorio, from Wube Software, drops you on an alien planet with nothing but your hands. You chop trees and mine ore manually at first, then craft mechanical arms (inserters) and transport belts so machines do the work. Research leads to oil refining, solar fields and construction robots, and the classic goal is building and launching a rocket. You can keep going after that, and many players do.

Three things set it apart. The first is scale: the 2D world is infinite, so your factory can sprawl as far as your planning holds up. The second is pressure: pollution from your factory angers the local creatures, so defense becomes part of the design. The third is how far the systems go, with blueprints for copying whole sections, circuit networks for logic, a level editor, scenarios and deep mod support.

It is on Windows, macOS and Linux with online co-op, LAN co-op and cross-platform multiplayer, and it holds an Overwhelmingly Positive Steam rating from more than 236,000 reviews. That bar is high, so the games like Factorio below each match one or two of those pillars rather than all of them. Knowing which pillar you care about most is the easiest way to pick.

Big automation games like Factorio

These are the closest matches: open-ended factory builders where you start small, research upward and keep scaling. Several are in Early Access, which means the developer is still adding to them and Steam sells them before a full release.

Satisfactory

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Satisfactory is the game most Factorio players try next, and for good reason. Coffee Stain Studios takes the same chase for automation and puts you on the ground in first person, building multi-story factories across an alien planet as an employee of the FICSIT corporation. You lay conveyor belts, move liquids through pipes, and automate trucks and trains to faraway outposts, with jetpacks and jump pads for getting around.

The trade-off is perspective. You lose Factorio’s bird’s-eye overview, but you gain the sheer sight of a factory towering over you. It suits players who want building to feel physical. It supports single-player, online co-op and cross-platform multiplayer on Windows, and holds an Overwhelmingly Positive rating.

Dyson Sphere Program

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If your favorite part of Factorio is when one planet stops being enough, Dyson Sphere Program from Youthcat Studio is built around that idea. You play a space engineer building a factory that grows from a small workshop to a galaxy-wide operation, shipping resources between star systems and eventually building Dyson Spheres, huge structures that orbit a star to harvest its energy.

It has blueprints for saving layouts and adds battles and defensive structures, so there is still something to protect. Steam lists it as single-player only and in Early Access, with an Overwhelmingly Positive rating. Pick it if you want the most “late-game Factorio” feeling on this list.

Captain of Industry

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Captain of Industry is for players who enjoy Factorio’s long production trees and want more logistics on top. You start on a remote island with a small crew, and the whole terrain is dynamic: you can flatten mountains, dig open-pit mines and dump rock into the ocean to make new land. Over 100 technologies take you from metal smelting to oil refining, electronics, nuclear power and space flight.

Unlike Factorio, you also feed your people, manage waste and pollution for their health, and move goods by trucks, trains, belts and pipes. It is single-player, in Early Access, and rated Very Positive. It suits players who like a factory that is also a settlement.

FOUNDRY

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FOUNDRY, from Channel 3 Entertainment and published by Paradox Interactive, is a first-person factory builder in a procedurally generated, infinite voxel world. Voxel means the world is made of blocks you can dig and reshape, so you can build from deep underground up into the sky. Your goal is a giant automated robot factory, with power systems to maintain and products to sell through interplanetary trade.

Think of it as a middle ground between Satisfactory’s view and Factorio’s freedom to build anywhere. It supports single-player plus online and LAN co-op, sits in Early Access, and has a Very Positive rating. A strong pick for friends who want to share one sprawling build.

Techtonica

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Techtonica from Fire Hose Games moves the factory underground. You mine your way through glowing alien caves on the world of Calyx, building machines and reshaping caverns as you dig toward the surface. Its distinguishing feature is a full, voice-acted story campaign, which no other pick here offers.

If you have ever wished Factorio had more direction and a mystery to follow, this is the one. It has single-player, online co-op and full controller support. Its Steam rating is Mixed, so it is a better fit for players who value the story and the caves than for those wanting the deepest systems.

Factory building with defense and survival pressure

Factorio’s biters turn efficient production into a matter of survival. These games put that pressure front and center, each in a different way.

Mindustry

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Mindustry is a factory game crossed with tower defense (placing turrets to stop waves of enemies) and RTS, or real-time strategy, where you command units. Your conveyor belts feed ammo into turrets, your production lines build units, and you send those units to capture enemy bases. It is the purest version of Factorio’s “build to defend” loop.

It has a campaign you can play alone or in cross-platform online co-op, plus team-based online PvP, Steam Workshop support and a level editor. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux and is rated Overwhelmingly Positive. Great for players who enjoyed the military side of Factorio most.

Oxygen Not Included

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Klei’s Oxygen Not Included swaps belts for plumbing, power and temperature. You guide a colony of Duplicants inside an asteroid, where oxygen, warmth and food are always running short. You design power grids and pipe networks much like a Factorio player plans oil processing, but heat moves through everything, and each colonist reacts to stress in their own, sometimes destructive, way.

It is single-player, available on Windows, macOS and Linux, and rated Overwhelmingly Positive. Choose it if you liked Factorio’s fluid systems and want an engineering puzzle where the enemy is physics rather than monsters.

Industries of Titan

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Industries of Titan is an industrial city builder and strategy game on Saturn’s moon, Titan. You build roads, housing and power, salvage materials from ancient ruins, fend off rebels and compete with rival corporations. Victory can come through technology, influence, warfare or wealth.

It leans more toward city management and strategy than pure automation, so treat it as a side step rather than a direct replacement. It is single-player with a Mixed Steam rating. It suits players who enjoyed defending a growing industrial base and want rivals with their own plans.

Games like Factorio but simpler and calmer

Sometimes you want the belts without the biters. These three remove enemies entirely so you can focus on layout and flow.

shapez

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shapez strips the genre to its core. You extract basic shapes, cut them, stack them in layers, paint them and deliver them to a hub. Every level asks for something more complex, and the map keeps expanding. There are no enemies, timers or resource limits, but optional wiring and logic give optimizers plenty to dig into.

It is the easiest game here to recommend to someone who bounced off Factorio’s complexity, and it is a great palate cleanser between big runs. Single-player on Windows, macOS and Linux, rated Overwhelmingly Positive.

Factory Town

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Factory Town has you supply a village in the wilderness with food, clothing, tools, books and magical artifacts. Workers can carry goods early on, but the real game is automating with conveyor belts, gravity-powered chutes, railroads, pipes, sorters and even airships across 3D terrain.

There are no enemies or starvation, so it is a stress-free logistics challenge. It suits players who like seeing a town grow from their supply chains. It is single-player with full controller support and Workshop support, on Windows and macOS, rated Very Positive.

Learning Factory

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Learning Factory, from Luden.io, is a relaxed automation game where your customers are cats on Mars. You restore an abandoned factory, connect lines with belts and air transport across surface and underground layers, and route the cats themselves to the stores that stock what they want. You can also experiment with machine learning to improve the business.

It is single-player, playable at your own pace, with controller support, Workshop and a level editor, and it is rated Very Positive. A gentle, charming pick for anyone who wants Factorio’s routing puzzles without combat.

Puzzle factories for optimizers

If the best part of Factorio is redesigning a build until it is perfect, these games turn that habit into the whole point. They are smaller in scale and built around set challenges rather than an endless sandbox.

Opus Magnum

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Opus Magnum, from puzzle studio Zachtronics, gives you a transmutation engine and asks you to build alchemical machines from programmable arms, tracks and stranger devices. Each puzzle has many valid solutions, and the game scores yours on cost, speed and size against your friends and the world. You can export animated GIFs of your designs.

It comes with a story about an alchemist in a powerful noble house. Single-player with Workshop and a level editor, on Windows, macOS and Linux, rated Overwhelmingly Positive. Ideal for players whose favorite moment is compressing a sprawling line into something elegant.

Infinifactory

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Infinifactory, also from Zachtronics, is a first-person 3D puzzle game where you build factories that assemble products for alien overlords. The story campaign has more than 50 puzzles, plus a sandbox and Workshop puzzles. Histograms show how your solution compares, which nudges you to optimize again.

It feels like a puzzle-sized Satisfactory with Factorio’s obsession with efficiency. Single-player, on Windows, macOS and Linux, rated Very Positive.

Big Pharma

Big Pharma puts you in charge of a pharmaceutical company, laying out machines that refine ingredients into medicines. You start with a few rusty machines and work toward new ingredients and high-tech equipment, while rivals compete and the market shifts with the seasons.

The production layouts will feel familiar to any Factorio player, but the business layer adds a different kind of decision. Single-player on Windows, macOS and Linux, rated Mostly Positive. Best for players who like spreadsheets as much as belts.

How to choose among games like Factorio

The genre can look similar from screenshots, but these games feel very different after an hour. A few questions narrow it down fast.

• Top-down or first person? Factorio, shapez, Mindustry, Factory Town and Learning Factory give you an overview. Satisfactory, FOUNDRY, Techtonica and Infinifactory put you on the ground, which looks spectacular but makes very large layouts harder to read.
• Do you want enemies? Mindustry, Dyson Sphere Program and Industries of Titan keep combat. shapez, Factory Town and Learning Factory have none.
• Sandbox or puzzles? The Zachtronics games and Infinifactory’s campaign give you defined goals. Everything else is open-ended.
• Playing with friends? Only Satisfactory, FOUNDRY, Techtonica and Mindustry list co-op on Steam.

A worked example

Say you loved Factorio with a friend, mostly for planning train networks, but found the biter attacks a chore and often played on peaceful settings. You need co-op and logistics depth, without much combat. That rules out the single-player picks and Mindustry. Satisfactory and FOUNDRY both remain, and both have trains or deep logistics; Satisfactory’s trucks and trains make it the stronger fit for rail lovers, while FOUNDRY’s LAN co-op helps if you play in the same room.

Common mistakes

• Expecting Factorio’s scale from a puzzle game. Opus Magnum and Infinifactory are brilliant, but they are about small, perfect machines, not endless bases.
• Assuming every factory game has co-op. Dyson Sphere Program, Captain of Industry and Oxygen Not Included are single-player on Steam.
• Forgetting Early Access. Dyson Sphere Program, Captain of Industry and FOUNDRY are still in development, so features can change between updates.
• Ignoring the review summary. Techtonica and Industries of Titan are Mixed on Steam; read recent reviews to see whether the complaints matter to you.

If you enjoy building and crafting more broadly, our games like Minecraft and games like Terraria lists overlap with these. For survival with a base to defend, try our games like Valheim picks, and for a calmer routine, games like Stardew Valley. You can browse more in games like the ones you love or see the best games on Steam by genre.

Questions and answers

Is there Factorio multiplayer?

Yes. Steam lists Factorio with online co-op, LAN co-op and cross-platform multiplayer, so you can build one shared factory with friends on Windows, macOS or Linux. Players on the same server normally share research, which makes it easy to split up the work: one person runs mining, another handles oil, a third builds the defenses. Single-player is fully supported too.

What are games like Satisfactory?

If you like Satisfactory's first-person view and multi-story factories, try FOUNDRY, which drops you into an infinite voxel world with online and LAN co-op, or Techtonica, an underground factory game with a voice-acted story campaign and online co-op. Dyson Sphere Program also suits Satisfactory fans who want a 3D factory that grows from one planet to a whole galaxy, though it is single-player.

Is Factorio still popular?

Factorio holds an Overwhelmingly Positive Steam rating from more than 236,000 user reviews, which puts it among the most consistently well-reviewed games on the store. It also has a large modding scene, built-in scenarios and multiplayer, so there is a lot to come back to. If you have finished a run, launching another with mods or friends is a common way to keep playing.

What is a simpler game like Factorio?

shapez is the closest simpler option: belts, miners and machines that cut, stack and paint shapes, with no enemies, timers or resource limits. Learning Factory and Factory Town are also relaxed automation games without enemies. Each keeps Factorio's satisfying production chains while stripping out the combat and the long resource trees, which makes them good picks for newcomers or calmer sessions.

Which games like Factorio have co-op?

On Steam, Satisfactory, FOUNDRY and Techtonica all list online co-op, with FOUNDRY adding LAN co-op and Satisfactory adding cross-platform multiplayer. Mindustry lists online co-op plus team-based PvP. Most of the other picks here, including Dyson Sphere Program, Captain of Industry and Oxygen Not Included, are single-player only, so check the player modes before buying for a group.