By Connor Gard

“No Man’s Sky”, developed by independent studio Hello Games is a space exploration game that was awaited by many for quite some time.

It was the next big jump in procedural generation, in which the game generates a large amount of textures and models to create sizable amounts of content. Through the anticipation and marketing of the game, it appeared to be the next big thing, but anticipation doesn’t make a game.

No Man’s Sky throws you onto a randomly generated planet out of nearly 18 quintillion, and leaves you with a broken ship and some simple tips on how to get it up and running.  Gather resources from the plant and animal life around you, as well as mineral resources to repair your ship, gear, and recharge your equipment, as well as visit neighboring planets, upgrade your ship’s equipment, and begin visiting neighboring solar systems.  Journey through space and discover new planets, animals, and plant life at each new turn, and survive harsh elements around you due to varying climates on each planet.

No Man’s Sky looks to be a game that has unending amounts of playtime and fun to be had, but it lacks that quality it was sold off to have.  The game looks to have a lot to it, but it is mostly rinse and repeat.  Gather resources, recharge and repair your equipment, meet some bland, characterless aliens, and be on your way.  After about six hours of gameplay, I found myself looking away from the game constantly, as I was just landing to grab resources, refill my ship and fly off to a new solar system, as there was little else to do besides it.  The game is big, but bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better.

Early trailers of the game showed off a lot that just wasn’t in the game at launch, such as meaningful factions, real-time warping fleets, classes of ships, and “real” multiplayer.  So much was told and shown, but had just disappeared at launch.  The game is just your run-of-the-mill third party, craft and adventure game.  It showed a lot of potential in the beginning, but with little communication and sudden dropping of seemingly functioning mechanics, the company lost credibility, and the hype for the game slowly started to fade away.  For a project a small development team made, the game is pretty good, but overall, there are games in the same field that are better.