Factorio Switch 2 Edition Review
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch
Have you seen the sci-fi movie The Fifth Element? There’s a scene where the villain, Zorg, talks about how chaos gives life meaning and shatters a glass on the floor. A small army of robots immediately springs into action, cleaning up the mess while he says, “Look at all these little things! So busy now! Notice how each one is useful. A lovely ballet ensues, so full of form and colour.” That scene often comes to mind when I play Factorio, a game I’ve been obsessed with for years. Every piece of machinery I craft serves the greater purpose of helping me leave the planet. Now, Wube has brought Switch 2 gamers a free update, along with the Space Age DLC, which I’ll cover at a later stage. What’s It Like? Grab your pickaxe, craft some drills, and prepare for mechanical automation as we review Factorio for Nintendo Switch 2.
Factorio is a top-down crafting game that often feels like Minecraft on steroids. You play as an engineer who has crash-landed on a strange planet full of resources, which you must mine, process, and smelt to create a ballet of automation in order to escape. The game wastes no time with a narrative, instead placing you in front of your crashed ship to salvage what you can for a head start.
That head start is essential as you begin with crude, rudimentary items like a coal-powered drill and stone furnaces, constantly needing to be manually refilled to keep your industrial machine churning. Eventually, you can research new technologies, harness steam power, use conveyor belts and electricity to automate mining and smelting, and upgrade your factory to craft more complex materials automatically.
All the noise and pollution you generate attracts the local wildlife, forcing you to fend off Starship Trooper-like bugs to defend your machines. Over time, you can armour up, lock and load, and take the fight to alien nests to buy yourself some breathing room. My own base eventually featured reinforced concrete walls filled with automated chainguns that could fire near-infinite clips, defending everything I had painstakingly built.
Eventually, you will move on to even more complex machines and combinations, including processing crude oil for plastics or uranium for power. These upgrades are hard-earned, and the pacing of the game feels rewarding through slow, deliberate progression. Thankfully, upgrading existing structures is straightforward for the most part, as you can simply place newer conveyor belts or furnaces over existing ones, automatically returning the old structure to your inventory while installing the new one in place.
What makes Factorio so compelling is the sense of progression through problem-solving. When areas of my base stopped receiving iron plates, I first increased drills and automation. When that didn’t work, I realised the issue was delivery. Adding splitters and new conveyor routes solved the bottleneck, and with each problem fixed came a real sense of elation. While Factorio is by no means cozy, there’s a relaxing rhythm in watching raw materials become engines, then research points, and ensuring a steady flow of resources across your sprawling base.
On Switch 2, performance is smoother than the original Switch version, with faster load times and steadier frame rates that keep massive factories running without slowdown. Portability allows you to build, expand, and defend your factory anywhere. The free Switch 2 update also includes quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes, bringing the console version closer to parity with PC, with support for the Space Age DLC, which can be purchased separately when you’re ready to expand your automation empire. Another welcome addition is mouse controls, which speed up both placement of items and menu navigation, which could be difficult to get the hang of on Switch 1.
Factorio is presented with a bitmap-style 2D graphics engine featuring clean, detailed visuals and smooth animations. The movement and rhythm of your factories, from conveyor belts to assembling machines, echo Zorg’s quote, running like a ballet of wonder and construction. Watching raw materials flow through a well-oiled factory is oddly mesmerising, as each machine, belt, and inserter performs its task in perfect synchronisation. At later levels, trains and drones help bridge the divide between bases, adding to this choreography or automation.
Factorio’s audio design is subtle. The gentle hum of machines, the steady clatter of conveyor belts, and the rhythmic drilling of resources form a constant industrial backdrop. These mechanical sounds quietly reinforce the sense that your factory is always working, even when you are standing still and planning your next move. At times, the soundscape is interrupted by ominous musical cues that heighten the feeling of isolation and danger on this hostile planet. As your factory grows, and depending on how it is laid out, the distant echo of gunfire can suddenly cut through the noise, setting off alarms in your own mind as you wonder whether your defences have been breached. It’s a minimalist approach to audio, but used effectively. Rather than demanding attention, Factorio’s sound design supports the atmosphere, reinforcing tension for the player.
Despite the complexity of even the largest factories, Factorio keeps everything visually clear and, for the most part, colour-coded so you know what’s what. Resources, belts, and machines are easy to distinguish, and colour coding and icons help you quickly identify production lines at a glance by pressing up on the D-pad. On Switch 2, the graphics remain sharp even in handheld mode, with scaling improvements that make sprawling bases manageable on the smaller screen. All of this runs at a silky smooth frame rate on screen, with no noticeable performance issues during normal play, and despite my factory being absolutely massive, even zoomed out, Factorio on Switch 2 performs well.
For mechanics looking into accessibility, there is a surprisingly broad range of options available to make time in Factorio more comfortable. These include extensive UI customisation, audio controls, graphical adjustments, and multiple controller configuration options, allowing players to tailor the experience to their needs. It is so encouraging to see such a wide selection of accessibility features included, especially for a game as mechanically dense as Factorio. That said, even with UI scaling enabled, vision-impaired engineers may struggle in handheld mode. The interface can feel too small for precise touchscreen inputs, which can lead to moments of frustration when managing complex factory layouts. I personally gravitated toward Joy-Cons as my primary control method. While they can feel clunky at first, familiarity built over hundreds of hours made them second nature. Players looking for a more precise input option can also use mouse controls while docked, which helps alleviate many of the UI and input challenges present in handheld play.
At $55 AUD, Factorio offers hundreds of hours of mesmerising, carefully considered gameplay. I’ve already ticked over 60 hours on the Switch 2 edition of Factorio, and I’ve only just managed to launch into space to experience the Space Age DLC. Admittedly, I could have easily spent double that time with my boots firmly on the ground, perfecting rail transportation, tank combat, and advanced construction. Factorio is an immensely satisfying and cerebrally taxing game. It won’t appeal to everyone, thanks to its steep learning curve, but for those willing to study its systems and see what’s happening under the hood, there’s a beautiful ballet waiting for you, full of form and colour.
So, What’s it Like? Factorio is like Satisfactory, crossed with Minecraft.
Enjoyed our Factorio Switch 2 Edition Review?
✨ Support What’s It Like? Want to help keep this independent Nintendo outlet running? Here are a few ways you can support:
🌐 More Nintendo reviews and guides: https://www.whatsitlike.com.au/
☕ Buy me a Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/whatsitlike
🎥 Join the Patreon for behind-the-scenes content: https://patreon.com/u102681944
Factorio Switch 2 Edition
CONS
- Steep learning curve can be daunting to new players
