Despite being early access this Satisfactory and No Man's Sky hybrid is great, and right now its on sale

When it comes to factory automation games, I'm no genius. I lack foresight, and all of my plans go out of the window as soon as the all-too-familiar spaghetti trails become obvious. It's a lot better if you don't look at my Satisfactory worlds and simply pretend I'm actually good at running a factory. Even though I love both genres, I'm much better at FPS action, and somehow StarRupture combines both genres, and now I'm bad at both.

Bad is a bit strong. The better term might be "horribly misorganized". Developed by Creepy Jar, the team behind Green Hell (which, may I add, I also suck at), StarRupture is not as involved in automation as Satisfactory, nor is it enough to be a full-on survival game like its predecessor. Instead, it sits in a weird hybrid balance, and despite the mixture of genres battling for attention, it manages to work.

It starts relatively simply. You (and potentially some other convicts) are forced to work for a corporation on a mysterious and unsurprisingly dangerous planet, extracting resources to send them to orbit for your 'employer' (I use that term loosely). It starts with the idea of running extractors into smelters and sending the smelted goods into space, but as you'll quickly realize, things can get a bit messy.

I don't mean just in the chaos of a makeshift factory either, even if that's a major part of it. As you progressively explore the planet and grow from a lost convict on a strange planet to a slightly less lost convict, you'll eventually have to deal with hordes of aggressive aliens that charge your base. You'll need to defeat them in order to get back to work, such is the nine-to-five job of a space-faring factory manager.

It's currently in early access, so not only is the price likely to go up at 1.0, but I suspect the actual content is going to improve drastically as well. The roadmap promises an expanded map, more weapons, different buildings and resources, gameplay improvements, and entirely new mechanics. Although plans are subject to change, Creepy Jar expects StarRupture to be in early access for just a year, so it won't be long until we see some of these promises hopefully come to fruition.

That doesn't change the fact that the core experience is already brimming with stuff to do, and if you want it even cheaper than the early access price currently on Steam, you can grab StarRupture for just $16.39 / £13.93 at Fanatical. You'll still get the same Steam key, so no extra launchers required, but you're just getting it cheaper. That's a win-win in my eyes.

As someone who's spent far too much time in Satisfactory, Factorio, and more automation games, this is a gem in the making, so make sure to grab it while it's cheaper than ever.