Foundry Hands-On Preview: "Endless Opportunities For Efficiency"

Summary Foundry offers players endless opportunities for efficiency in a futuristic factory building sandbox.

The game provides robotic benefits, vast resources, and minimal restrictions for creative building.

Foundry's early access release shows immense potential with complex mechanics and quality of life features.

Foundry is a futuristic factory building sandbox that offers players nearly endless opportunities for efficiency. It's the debut title from Channel 3 Entertainment, which was founded by developers that have worked on titles like Don't Starve Together and Oxygen Not Included, and published by Paradox Interactive, known for franchises like Age of Wonders and Cities: Skylines. It's about to enter early access next month, and even for an unfinalized version of the game, Foundry shows an immense amount of potential.

The game sees players taking on the role of a robot sent to a resource-rich moon as part of the Foundry Initiative, with the goal of converting it into a manufacturing hub. In some ways, Foundry feels similar to games like Lightyear Frontier, offering a more modernized twist on crafting and base building. Players are afforded many robotic benefits, like no stamina bar and no need for sleep, as well as satisfying ways to build and demolish areas en masse, all of which relieve many of the frustrations commonly found in the genre.

Related 10 Best Sandbox Games For The Nintendo Switch By imposing minimal restrictions, sandbox games allow players to be their true creative selves. Some of the best can be found on the Nintendo Switch.

Foundry's World & Story Leave A Lot Open To Players

Resources & Robotic Pals

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Much like Minecraft, the world of Foundry is procedurally generated in voxel style, and is easily malleable at the hands of a well-equipped robot. There are several different biomes that dot the map and unique resources to discover both above and below ground, and the sprawling landscapes have a lot of beauty to be found as well. The moon currently doesn't have any creatures inhabiting it, but it's possible some will come along in a future update.

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Foundry is purposefully a game with few explicit goals. There are tasks given by AI companion Carl and the adorably rotund robot C3-BB, but for the most part, players dictate how they wish to move forward. The narrative of the Foundry Initiative does continue after landing, and is certainly part of what drives the constant evolution of production lines, but it somewhat takes a backseat to players' own goals.

Foundry's Gameplay Mechanics Are Sound

Building & Running The Ultimate Factory

Foundry ramps things up much faster than other crafting games - while in games like My Time at Portia automation and assembly lines are late-game notions, here they're just a jumping off point for what's to come. For example, one of the first tasks given to players is to build a drone-driven mining operation, which will then be connected to conveyor belts to bring ore to smelters. It's a game that shows it values the player's time in little ways, like automatically making smaller parts needed for bigger recipes when they're selected in the crafting menu. Quality of life features tend to be big selling points for the genre, so that focus will no doubt help Foundry resonate with people at release.

Considering the early access release of the game already has so much depth, it's exciting to think of where the title will go before its final release.

The scale of Foundry is clear to see from its massive skill tree system, which features a dearth of content options that will no doubt let players interested in maximizing their efficiency and customizing their playstyle do exactly that. Through research fueled by craftable science packs, players can upgrade their robotic body, refine new materials, get blueprints for beefier machines, and much more. As they do, the factory becomes increasingly complex, with mechanisms like underground elevators and flying cargo ships. This complexity helps establish progression visually as well as mechanically. There are decorations to unlock as well, and pieces can be recolored to further customize the set-up,

The Future Of Foundry & Its Roadmap For Players

The game fully embodies the efficient ideals it espouses for the player, with quality of life features like inventory sorting and a tablet that allows objects to be copied and pasted that really reinforce the feeling of everything running smoothly. Games that offer sandbox-style playthroughs can often fall victim to the pitfall of too many options without control measures to prevent them from escalating into chaos; there's a sense here that this won't be possible thanks to some savvy early design decisions that show a deft hand at constructing a wide-open world.

There's currently no concrete roadmap established for Foundry, but it wouldn't be surprising if even more streamlined mechanics arrived in the future. The game also offers multiplayer, with servers technically having no character limit - though two to four is the recommended number. While unable to test that extensively during this hands-on, it's another layer that adds hope for Foundry's potential staying power.

Like many games that center around sandbox-style gameplay or factory management, players will want to quickly get to grips with Foundry's systems, so early play should be a lot of familiarization prior to really diving in.

Considering the early access release of the game already has so much depth, it's exciting to think of where the title will go before its final release. It's certainly a game that encourages creativity, both in how players decorate and how they lay out their factory, and as more things are added to the title, what players build over time will certainly be something to watch. Players can start building factories of their own later this week when Foundry releases in early access.