Plan B: Terraform Review

When a game tells you up front that your goal is to terraform an entire planet, you expect a grind. What I didn’t expect from Plan B: Terraform was how meditative that grind could feel. This isn’t Factorio’s frantic dance of production chains or Dyson Sphere Program’s cosmic sprawl. It’s something slower, calmer, and more deliberate: a logistics builder where the stakes aren’t efficiency for efficiency’s sake, but whether you can breathe on the world you’re reshaping.

The game has been in Early Access since 2023, and its 1.0 launch brings it into focus. Systems are tighter, performance is smoother, and there’s a sense that the mechanics finally line up with the vision. It still carries some quirks, but the release version I played felt like the complete experience developer Gaddy Games always intended.

From Rusty Rocks to Green Horizons

The first few hours of Plan B: Terraform set the tone: you land on a barren planet with a few basic extractors and factories. Resources like aluminum, fluorite, and sulfur trickle in through slow conveyors, which feed into basic production lines. Before long, you’ll find yourself juggling more complex components such as glass, steel, and polymers, while using them to supply fledgling settlements.

This is where the Plan B makes its personality known. You don’t design the cities directly. Instead, they grow in response to the goods you provide, spreading across the dusty plains like a time-lapse of urbanization. Watching them expand feels earned in a way that’s different from placing down rows of buildings yourself. They’re proof that your logistics are working, a living scoreboard for your industrial planning.

The Long Game of Terraforming

What really separates Plan B from its peers is that the factories are only half the equation. Every machine you build feeds into a planetary project: warming the climate, generating water, seeding forests. Over time, the gray desert softens into greenery, rivers snake across valleys, and temperatures creep into survivable ranges.

It’s a slower burn than some players will be used to. There are stretches where your networks are humming along, and all you can do is wait for atmospheric changes to register. There’s somewhat of a lull in the midpoint of setting up proper chains, where you literally are just waiting. But I also found a strange rhythm in it. The quiet moments gave me space to zoom out and appreciate what I’d built, instead of constantly chasing the next efficiency upgrade.

What’s New in the 1.0 Launch

Version 1.0 doesn’t reinvent the loop, but it does refine it. Performance is noticeably better; conveyor mazes that used to chug along now run cleanly even as cities sprawl across the map. The user interface is sharper, making it easier to trace where resources are bottlenecking. Visual feedback for terraforming has improved too: greenery spreads more naturally, and rivers feel less like painted lines and more like part of the terrain.

None of these changes are flashy, but together they make the experience smoother and more cohesive. The game feels finished with its 1.0 release, not just functional.

A Barren Planet

The tradeoff for its accessible design is that Plan B doesn’t offer much resistance. There are no enemies, no disasters, no sharp failures—only inefficiencies to correct. If you’re coming from the high-pressure worlds of Factorio, you may find it too gentle. The mid-game pacing is also uneven, with long stretches of waiting that won’t appeal to players who want constant tinkering.

And while the visuals are clean, they’re also utilitarian. Cities grow, forests spread, but they never quite cross the line into awe-inspiring. Functionality wins out over spectacle, which is fitting for the design, though it leaves some moments feeling flat.

Still, accessibility is a strength. If you’ve always been curious about factory games but bounced off their complexity, Plan B is a welcoming on-ramp. The systems are clear, the stakes are understandable, and the satisfaction of seeing barren landscapes turn green is immediate. There’s no penalty for taking it slow, no fail state lurking if you make a mistake. It’s a builder that wants you to relax into its rhythms rather than stress over them.

Little Blue Marble

Plan B: Terraform isn’t trying to compete with the scale of Dyson Sphere Program or the brutal optimization of Factorio. Instead, it carves out a quieter lane. One where the joy comes from seeing a dead world breathe again. The 1.0 release smooths the rough edges and delivers a game that’s both approachable for newcomers and rewarding for anyone who enjoys the long view of progress.

It won’t be for everyone, but if you’re the kind of player who enjoys watching a plan unfold slowly, conveyor by conveyor, city by city, then there’s something here worth sinking into.