No Man's Sky

No Man's Sky is an adventure simulator with a first-person view set in a futuristic environment. You will embark on a journey to explore space and planets, some of which may allow interaction with various forms of alien life. You will be able to gather resources, fight in space in diverse, randomly generated areas of the galaxy, upgrade and enhance your own ship, and complete missions for "bounty hunters."

No Man's Sky is a sandbox in an open world with elements of an action-adventure game. The player must explore a vast game world while sitting at the helm of a spaceship, but there are a couple of other gameplay possibilities. That's basically it.

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

There are 20 billion star systems and over 80 billion planets in the galaxy, and it takes hours of real time to travel from the edge (where the player appears) to the center. Movement within a system occurs using a hyperdrive, while travel between systems is done via warp jumps.

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

The story of No Man's Sky is completely independent of the world. The player finds themselves on an unexplored planet, after which the basics are taught — using technologies to create items, searching for resources, interacting with the world, trading, and managing a spaceship.

Some players start their journey on toxic planets and must survive in 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 story 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 — a lot has changed. For example, the character learned to think (in the Next update of 2018), engage in dialogues, and insert their own thoughts, as well as attempt to interpret what an alien is saying if their language has not yet been studied.

The character has no backstory and there is no significant influence of decisions made on the plot, like in Mass Effect. On the contrary, the story of No Man's Sky is about feelings and meanings, rather than decisions and epic pathos.

The writers guide the player for about 30 hours to the thought 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 some superintelligence (which the developers imply is themselves).

There are also side quests that can be more challenging than the main quest and require an upgraded ship and character. The developers constantly add new quests and activities, and in 2018, it takes more than 50 hours to complete them.

At the time of release, the gameplay of No Man's Sky was simple and focused on space flights and planet exploration, 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, new points of interest appeared in the star systems — black holes, space anomalies, trading stations, as well as other players' bases. A number of game activities became related to mini-games and puzzles, for solving which you can receive a valuable item or technology.

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

The economy in No Man's Sky is simple — for example, searching for new life forms brings a small income, while a complete exploration of a planet grants a solid reward. Alternatively, 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 purchasing 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 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 within the community, so you could encounter planets named "Butt" or "Front," and extremely "original" names for species.

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

In multiplayer mode, many game systems began to work instead of just "pretending." 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 permitted to just fly around and raid caravans), as well as visit each other through a teleport across half the galaxy.