Factorio for iPhone

An unofficial fan project that runs your own Steam copy of Factorio 2.0.77 natively on iPhone. No game files in the repository and no emulation

In simple terms

Factorio exists for the Mac, and modern Macs and iPhones use processors of the same architecture, ARM64. So the game's original code can run on a phone unchanged: only some macOS system functions are missing on iOS

The project takes the game from your Mac, edits only the program's service header so that iOS agrees to load it, and adds a thin layer in place of the missing macOS functions that translates them for the iPhone: windows, display, sound, touch and keyboard

What already works

• Full screen resolution. The game renders through Metal at 2556×1179 on iPhone 15 Pro
• Sound. The game sees the iPhone speaker as a regular audio device
• Touch controls. Tap is the left mouse button, hold is the right one (mining resources), two fingers are the wheel, plus an on-screen WASD stick and E, Q, R, F, M, T buttons
• Keyboard. The iOS keyboard with a bar of Esc, Tab, Ctrl, Alt, arrows and F1–F12, and Bluetooth keyboards
• Fast start. About 16 seconds to the main menu
• Saves. Autosaves work and stay on the phone across updates

How it works

• Only service fields of the game executable's Mach-O header change: not a single byte of game code is modified, and this is checked automatically
• About 150 macOS functions that iOS lacks are implemented on top of UIKit, Metal and CoreAudio
• The game code runs natively on the iPhone's processor: no JIT and no emulation
• Sprites are decoded with Wuffs, byte-for-byte the same as on macOS

Installation

You need a Mac with Xcode, Factorio 2.0.77 from Steam, an iPhone and an Apple account. After a one-time signing setup in Xcode, a single command is enough: ./install.sh builds the app, installs it and copies the game data to the phone. The step-by-step guide is in the repository README

Limitations

• Only version 2.0.77 from Steam for macOS is supported
• Not yet verified: mods, multiplayer, Space Age and very large factories
• The app is signed with your developer account; with a free Apple account it must be reinstalled every 7 days

Factorio is a trademark of Wube Software. This project is not affiliated with Wube and contains no game files: everything comes from your own copy