No Man's Sky

No Man's Sky — an adventure simulation game from a first-person perspective set in a futuristic environment. You will explore outer space and planets, some of which allow interaction with various forms of alien life. You can gather resources, fight in space across randomly generated galaxy regions, develop and upgrade your own spaceship, and complete missions for "bounty hunters".

No Man's Sky is an open-world sandbox with adventure shooter elements. The player must pilot a spaceship to explore a vast game world, but there are a couple of other gameplay options. That’s basically it.

The events of No Man's Sky unfold in an alternate universe, consisting of 256 galaxies nested within each other like matryoshka dolls. To reach the next galaxy, you need to get to the center of the current one.

The galaxy contains 20 billion star systems and over 80 billion planets, and traveling from the edge (where the player appears) to the center takes about an hour of real time. Movement within a system is done with a hyperdrive, and between systems — via warp jump.

Because of this, No Man's Sky is the largest game created at the time of its release. Thanks to procedural generation, even the combined actions of all players won't allow for complete exploration of the game world. The authors were inspired by the latest astronomical discoveries when creating stars and planets.

The story of No Man's Sky is completely independent of the universe. The player finds themselves on an unexplored planet, after which the tutorial begins — learning to use technologies to craft items, search for resources, interact with the world, trade, and control the spaceship.

Some players start their journey on toxic planets and must survive the first hours, clinging to life and gathering resources bit by bit, while others find themselves in a paradise surrounded by peaceful animals and rich resource deposits.

The storyline of No Man's Sky has been refined with each new expansion, and if you played after the release, it’s worth trying the game again — many things have changed. For example, in the Next update (2018), the character learned to think, hold dialogues, and insert their own thoughts, and will also try to interpret what an alien is saying if their language is not yet learned.

There are no backstories or significant influence of decisions on the plot, like in Mass Effect. On the contrary, the story of No Man's Sky is about feelings and meanings, not decisions and epic grandeur.

Over approximately 30 hours, the scenario guides the player to the idea that our universe is just a computer simulation.In the game, the hero encounters characters that make him think about the unreality of the No Man's Sky universe, which is actually created by a superintelligence (which the developers refer to as themselves).

There are also secondary missions that can be more difficult than the main quest and require a upgraded ship and character. Developers constantly add new missions and activities, and in 2018, completing them takes more than 50 hours.

When No Man's Sky was released, the gameplay was simple and focused on space flights and exploring planets, discovering and cataloging new species of plants and animals (like in Spore), completing basic quests, hunting, resource gathering, crafting items, and trading with NPCs.

With updates, other points of interest appeared in star systems — black holes, cosmic anomalies, trading stations, and also other players' bases. Some game activities became connected with mini-games and puzzles, where correct solutions could yield valuable items or technologies.

Both friendly natives, who can gift missing technology or resources, and hostile ones, who prefer to eat the hero for breakfast, started appearing. To fight them, you can use four types of weapons. You can also explore ruins of ancient civilizations, build on suitable worlds, or develop your fleet of ships.

The economy in No Man's Sky is simple — for example, finding new life forms brings a small income, and fully exploring a planet grants a substantial bonus. Or you can sell excess resources, organize expeditions, grow rare plants on a space farm, and so on.

All credits earned from quests can be spent on buying new technologies, rare resources, items, or ships. Each trader has their own assortment, so you need to think carefully — buy now or fly across the galaxy if you might need it later.

At the time of release, No Man's Sky offered an unusual online interaction — all names of planets and species discovered by players were shared with the community, so you could meet planets called “Ass” or “Front,” and species with very “original” names.

In subsequent updates, the game introduced full cooperative multiplayer for four players. When the world is synchronized, players with their characters and starships appear in the same universe and can explore together, complete different types of quests, and exchange resources.

In online mode, many game systems started to work, rather than just "pretend". For example, it became meaningful to develop bases and defend them, earn credits and gather resources, hunt each other (direct PvP between Travelers is allowed, but it’s also fine to just fly around and loot caravans), as well as visit each other through a teleport across half the galaxy.