I love space games. I’ll play any type, really: strategy games, flight games, survival games, shooters. I’ve always had a fondness of spaceflight games since playing Wing Commander in the 90s. These days, there’s Star Citizen (which really only partially exists; and the Squadron 42 part of the game is still in development) and Elite Dangerous. I love Elite, but I don’t like playing because I can’t just have fun and try things – if I die, I lose my ship and a decent amount of cash, which can be a grind to earn. What I really want is a game that I can just play without having to worry about things too much, and that’s where No Man’s Sky comes in.
The Past
No Man’s Sky had a rocky start. A lot of players didn’t like it, claiming it didn’t live up to the hype. That’s at least partially true (there were things that Sean Murray said but was never in gameplay or concept clips; though things were definitely more sparse and typically less interesting than the original trailer would lead you to believe), but I was hooked by the idea of simply exploring a procedural galaxy by my lonesome. I loved No Man’s Sky from the start. It was a chill single-player exploration game. Something you could sit down with and just lose yourself in for a few hours. It was peaceful in a lot of ways, even if you were getting chased by sentinels or hungry predators.
But since then, Hello Games has really turned it into the game that everyone wanted and then some. You can still explore, but now you can play missions with other players, build bases, mine resources, battle sentinels, command freighters, send frigates on expeditions, manage a settlement, tame and ride creatures, cook weird alien food, and more. They’re still adding to the game with new additions like the recent Sentinels update that added more sentinel varieties with specialized roles. A visual improvement a few updates back has made things look fantastic, and you can easily play with friends now.
The Present
I’ve been playing No Man’s Sky pretty heavily over the past few months, slowly building a resource extraction empire so I’ll have an unlimited supply of all the basic resources and plenty of units to buy ships or resources I need. I’ve mostly accomplished that – I have a mining outpost dedicated to every basic resource, a few Activated Indium mines (a high-value resource that can be sold for units), several Runaway Mould farms (which can be processed into nanites, one of the currencies), an A-Tier Freighter (still looking for an S-Tier), and I’ve even been to the center of the Euclid Galaxy (the starting galaxy) by using a portal to teleport a few jumps from the center. I play every expedition (the NMS equivalent of seasonal content in other games) to earn some unique new decorations or gear. I have over a billion units (basic currency), so I can buy whatever I need. I have a small settlement that produces dirt (still need to upgrade it some more). I have a farm that produces all the growable plants and harvests milk and fruit from local fauna. And there’s still more I want to do before I’m “done”, and even then, there’s plenty of cosmetic content that requires a special “Quicksilver” currency to purchase, which can only be acquired from special missions.
Of course, this is all after a relatively long break from No Man’s Sky. When I came back, I had to relearn a lot of different things. Luckily I came back with the second expedition, and the expeditions were designed to help players relearn the game, so it taught me a lot about how to play again. One expedition had a section dedicated to cooking, and I had to learn the cooking systems in the game to get through that (it’s a little boring). The expeditions require a new character and start players from the same place. You’ll see a lot of other players, and if you start a few days after the launch of an expedition, you can probably find a player base filled with resources you can use to get a head start. (In the last expedition, I found an Activated Indium mining base and took about 30k to sell and refine into Chromatic Metal. I was never in need of money or Chromatic Metal through the rest of the expedition.)
That’s not to say everything is perfect. There are still plenty of bugs. I have a base with no Base Computer because it disappeared while I was trying to move it (so I can’t rename or destroy the base now). Some bugs can be game-breaking, but I’ve been fortunate enough not to run into any of those.
Some things could be improved. I wish base building was a little smoother and had more snapping options (there are small floor panels that I have an incredibly hard time getting placed properly). I wish you could make base blueprints to instantly build small outposts. I wish I could customize the visuals of my ship.
You can get around most of problems with save editors since No Man’s Sky is still essentially a single-player game. I haven’t gone that far yet since I haven’t run into any major issues.
The Future
Hello Games continues to make updates that grow the game and add new ways to explore or stake your claim in the universe. Their pace has been pretty consistent and they claim to have plenty of ideas for things to add to the game. I’m still hopeful they add some of the customization options I’d like.
There’s some competition coming with games like Starfield from Bethesda (I’m interested, but not getting my hopes up), but No Man’s Sky has a big head start and some things I just don’t see getting added to other games (space whales seem out-of-place for games like Starfield or Elite).
And luckily, even with all those changes, No Man’s Sky still retains that chill exploration experience. It’s more hectic if you’re in an outlaw system or hazardous planet, but you can still just land on a paradise planet and enjoy the view.