Paradox have announced that they’re publishing Channel 3 Entertainment’s Foundry, a first-person factory management sim set in an… “infinite” world. Factories with no maximum size limit? Oh dear. I had a hard enough time shucking off my addiction to Dyson Sphere Program, in which you can build a factory that encloses the sun. I dread to think how much time I could waste away playing this.
Visually, Foundry is a mixture of Satisfactory and Minecraft – one of the earliest first-person games to support outlandish feats of in-game automation – with a procedurally generated voxel-based world that extends from jungles to mountains and mineshafts. You’ll place and mine terrain blocks as you please, slowly building up a network of pipes, conveyor belts and automated research facilities, supported by an ever-expanding power system. As in most factory sims, you’ll do a lot by hand initially before slowly upgrading to the point that the simulation will practically run itself – at least till some conveyor line clogs up around three miles away.
There’s the option to construct robot helpers, after manufacturing the requisite batteries, circuit boards and so on. Or you could enlist a friend to help via co-operative multiplayer – the developer haven’t set a limit on headcounts but recommend that you play Foundry with 2-4 players. In my experience, you’ll want at least one person on maintenance duties while two others handle expansion, and a fourth whose job is to gaze out over the once-pristine virtual realm you’ve demolished, and wring their hands at the inhumanity of it all.
It’s coming to Early Access at some point, and there’s a demo landing on 9th October as part of Steam Next Fest. Find a trailer below.
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