The initial goal is to construct a space elevator, through which the Pioneer begins supplying the megacorp the player works for (FICSIT Inc.) with increasingly numerous and complex components for their unknown, but stated to be prudent, purposes.

Conveyor belts, pipelines, trucks, trains, and drones are unlocked at various stages and are used to transport resources and components.

[9][10] The game was originally built using Unreal Engine 4 as the studio had past experience with it for their previous titles of Sanctum and Goat Simulator.

[11] By November 2023, Coffee Stain migrated the game to Unreal Engine 5, which provided improved performance and a more stable foundation for future updates.

[12] The game's world is not procedurally generated, and is instead a number of manually-created biomes covering an estimated 30 square kilometres (12 sq mi) area.

[2] Based on data collected by Simon Carless in mid-2021, Satisfactory had made at least US$11.5 million in revenue, surpassing the amount that Epic Games had assured as a minimum payout to Coffee Stain.