From manual ore mining and smelting to fully automated space exploration, the way player agency interacts with Factorio's robust systems creates an understanding of progress as a force of nature. As the game locks the player in cycles upon cycles of expansion and recoil - as automation breeds pollution that breeds bitters that require military advances that require automation - progress emerges less out of a player's desire to try new things and more out of sheer economic necessity. The factory, a being whose will is defined by the game's ravenous and wonderful economy, slowly unravels throughout a playthrough, supplying the demands needed to keep the player constantly on the edge of their seat, as well as playing all the way through the night if they're not careful.

Seeing my pollution clouds grow as I slowly drain the entire planet of its resources makes me feel a deep dread. I took a flight a couple days after I had first finished researching logistic bots. The past weeks had been hotter than I remembered them being last year, and the last months much hotter than I remembered them being when I was a kid. I looked through the window as the plane took to the sky and I saw roads and houses and factories expanding far beyond the horizon. I think Factorio is incredibly good.