Overview

No Man’s Sky is a sci-fi game released in August 2016 for PC and Playstation 4. It had enormous ambitions and came from a development team that had no previous comparable works. The game generated a lot of excitement from those anxious to play it, but on release, it became apparent that some of the features that had been directly promised and even shown in videos were very dumbed down or not present to begin with. This caused a backlash of criticism of massive proportions, tarnishing the game’s name and developers forever.

Since then, however, at the time of writing, there have been two major updates to No Man’s Sky, both providing a massive amount of new content while introducing very few and minor bugs. Additionally, different modes for different players were added apart from the standard normal mode; an extremely difficult “Survival” mode, and a creative mode where health and resources are infinite. For the purposes of this analysis, I will discuss the game in its current state in early April 2017 most prominently on normal mode, and ignore the features which were promised or planned that have yet to find their way into the game.

Main Feature – Procedural Generation and Subsequent Randomness

The game is ruled by the weighted randomness of procedural generation; however, each facet of this generation is similar to all of the others, making the randomness often feel disambiguate. The main feature and appeal of No Man’s Sky, the part that really makes the game “the game” and sets it apart, are the planets. There are over 18 quintillion (18,000,000,000,000,000,000) planets and moons in the game, and each one is different. The player can visit any one of them, provided they can get to it, and can seamlessly transition between the surface of a world and space with no loading screens. They are all procedurally generated; the landscape, landscape features, colors, plants, weather, hazards, and the environment. With an infinite number of possible combinations, there are so many worlds to see and explore. The many features of any given world are chosen with weighted randomness.

The procedural generation doesn’t end with planets though; there are four main elements in the game which are determined from predefined pools of “parts” which complement the exploration. The first one is as discussed, the planets. Next are the creatures; there are a plethora of different creature parts and pieces which are combined (sometimes in ways they shouldn’t be) to create a full animal. Another element is the starships. There are four classes: fighter, explorer, hauler, and shuttle. Again, there is a multitude of different features and parts which are randomly arranged to create a seemingly infinite number of different ships. The player can purchase and use any one of these ships in their adventures across the universe. The final main element is the multi-tool, which is the player’s weapon and mining tool; similar to before, there is endless variety in the form of shape, size, and color.

There are other minor instances of procedural generation, such as massive freighters (usually ambient, but the player can own one), and NPC aliens (different members of species look similar, but each one is still different). Another noteworthy example of procedural generation is the music, which takes pieces from different parts of the game’s complete soundtrack and combines them to create an atmospheric experience.

All of these procedural elements are random elements. The planets and moons you find in any given system, the rarity of certain resources on them, the creatures you find there, the ships you see flying overhead, the names of things you discover (before, if you choose, to rename them), and the hazards they exhibit, are all randomly generated from pre-defined pools. And these features are the entire game; the procedurally generated universe is all there is. Everything about the game stems from these features; this is, in a way, its downfall.

Game Flow

The game really does not change as it is played. The planets are spread out across countless solar systems in 256 different spherical galaxies. All players start in the same galaxy, and one of the goals the game gives the player is to reach the center of the galaxy. Unbeknownst to the player who hasn’t already found out on the internet, the center of each galaxy just leads to the next galaxy, which provides nothing new. The outside edge of the starting galaxy is identical, in relative terms, to the center of the final galaxy. The planets are different of course, and the ships and creatures, but there is nothing in terms of resources or experiences that can be found in one area of any galaxy that cannot be found in any other. The hazards are each in and of themselves even the same; extreme cold, extreme heat, radioactivity, and toxicity are all different in appearance, but following the trend of the game they behave the same. Thus, the flow of the game proceeds relatively at a constant. Even the resources don’t change; every necessary resource can be found on every planet, and almost all resources can be found in a single solar system. An exception would be a system with only a single planet, or the ultra-rare resources which are not required for anything beyond high-level upgrades.

Interest Curve

As can be expected from this, the interest curve begins extremely high, but can quickly drop. The game has an enormous and seemingly infinite 3D galaxy to explore; any star can be chosen and traveled to, and its planets explored. As time goes on, and the player realizes that though each planet and star system looks different there is nothing new to experience, the interest curve drops. Similarly, the player’s decisions really do not have much of an effect or weight on any outcome. The only major decision the player really gets to make is what star system to visit next, and as each one is essentially equally unique, this decision does not carry much weight.

Learning Curve

As for the learning curve, the game is, in my opinion (on normal mode) quite easy. The main goal of the game, aside from exploration and resource gathering, is to collect upgrades. These upgrades only make you stronger and more powerful. Sprint increases, increased hazard protection, stronger weapons, a better shield, etc. These are crafted in inventory slots using the resources that the player finds. When the player selects an empty inventory space, they are prompted to craft something (whether it be an upgrade or an item which are used for actions such as remotely calling the players ship or fuel cells for the warp drive). The interface clearly states exactly what resources are required to craft the upgrade/item and how many of them the player has. None of the upgrades provide any negative consequences, and it is very easy to tell what the upgrades do and how to obtain them; and on top of all of that, the game is already easy. Thus, the learning curve for the game begins low and slowly lowers from that point. An exception is survival mode, which is discussed later.

Types of Fun and Player Audience

These points may make the game sound quite boring, and for some it is. There are many, however, who continually love and enjoy the game. It caters to those who love sci-fi exploration, especially older gamers who read lots of sci-fi novels from the later decades of the 20^th century; indeed, the head creator of the game has stated that sci-fi book covers from these years were his inspiration, and he strove to make the game provide sights similar to those. The game can indeed be very beautiful; there are always barren dead moons with ugly red rock and nothing of note, but then you fly down to its parent planet and find a colorful jungle world at sunset, and the game looks magnificent. The game in its current state is meant for players who like to relax and enjoy the scenery. Making discoveries can get pretty exciting; when you jump into a new system and ahead of you is an ugly brown planet, but with a blue moon in orbit, and you head down to that moon to find huge creatures meandering about a lush jungle of blue leaves during a rainstorm, despite it in the end not offering much more than pretty scenery it still evokes a feeling of excitement from the player.

Noteworthy is the game’s survival mode, wherein resources are more difficult to come by, and they are consumed more quickly, which greatly increases the difficulty of the game. It is in this mode that feelings of accomplishment and triumph increase dramatically; there are many tasks in normal mode that may feel menial and may not be thought of at all, but which end up being extreme and difficult undertakings in survival mode. The reception and subsequent ability to use upgrades also slows down in this mode, due to the difficulty of simply getting around the universe, although again, the difficulty can only lessen. This mode obviously caters to players who want a more challenging experience, who enjoy the variety the game has to offer but who want tasks to be more challenging.

No Man’s Sky can be a very fun game. It really has no story, the learning curve is quite flat, and besides the select few who enjoy a game where the main goal is to simply move on to the next area, the interest curve drops off after just a few sessions. It caters to those who like to explore; the gathering of resources being a side mission which only ultimately allows the player to explore and gather more resources more efficiently. Due to the randomness of the procedural generation, decisions are ultimately meaningless, and a player just starting on their first planet will have an equal yet completely unique experience from a player 500 hours in. Despite its flaws, No Man’s Sky can certainly be a fantastic and enjoyable experience.

Sources

• Header image: http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/275850/header.jpg?t=1489002819

• Reddit user linuverin:
• Fighter ship seeds: http://imgur.com/a/cKD1G
• Hauler ship seeds: http://imgur.com/a/0AB7g
• Explorer ship seeds: http://imgur.com/a/HAjfJ
• Multi-tool seeds: http://imgur.com/a/Xh820

• My own personal experiences and images