Epic Car Factory (PC) Review

When starting up Epic Car Factory it is very difficult to take it seriously. What the player is faced with from the get-go is a very unappealing and simplistic game where everything costs a lot of money, and generates some money in return, always seeming like the game is rigged. ECF does a very poor job at giving off a good first impression. However, it doesn't take long for this to change for those still in it for the long ride.

This harsh start is a perfect analogy for real life corporations. At the start, one must be prepared to lose a lot of money building up the company, but it will not take too long to start turning those red numbers back to black once the company starts rolling and the player starts making more money and becoming the frontrunner of car development in the world. It is a very powerful mechanic that makes this feel like one of the purest takes on the genre that best reflects upon reality, making Epic Car Factory one of the few cases where an extreme early issues are actually highly justified by the mechanics and themes.

At the beginning, a lot is needed to create a good car factory. There is a need to hire, develop new cars on a regular basis, advertise to make them sell, and research and tune parts to make cars as great as humanly possible. It seems like such a losing game at times, but after a certain point, the costs feel like they are getting smaller compared to the income and the player can go all out with everything, even having ad campaigns involving space jumps for the cars.

What awaits, after having come past the initial couple of years of constant losses and being able to afford ridiculous ad campaigns for cars? Well, not that much, to be honest. The biggest difference is that people can start mass developing top-tier cars, winning awards left and right, and slowly, but steadily, taking over the car business industry as a whole. Developing, and researching is still always a highly important task throughout the entire experience as the standards constantly improve for what a car should be in a great and realistic way, which feels genuine and alive, and, past a certain point, all the player can do is sit developing new cars and raking in the ever-growing mountain of money.

Epic Car Factory might very well be one of the best economy sims on the market, for better and worse. The early sections and initial displeasure felt when playing is part of this package, making it highly justified as it reflects the losses someone takes when starting up a company. It is, however, a title for a very specific market, and those who will love it, will love it. For most others, the feeling of an absolute lack of middle ground between the start where the company lives from pay cheque to pay cheque, and the end game where the player dominates the market, feels boring. It is kind of like Monopoly; either you win hard, or you lose hard. This is basically the economy sim for people looking for a realistic, rather than a glorified, experience.