No Man’s Sky has had a great month, coincidentally around the launch of the other big space adventure of the day.
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No Man’s Sky has been one of the best examples of a video redemption story, and developer Hello Games never stopped expanding the game with new content, and more features. Just recently, the procedural space adventure celebrated its seventh anniversary with the Echoes update, and it doesn’t look like there’s an end in sight to this support.
But do these updates bring back players? The answer is an emphatic yes! Hello Games founder, Sean Murray, recently revealed that No Man’s Sky is having “its biggest month in the last few years.” Interestingly, this is happening across all platforms where No Man’s Sky is available - so PC, consoles, Mac, and even VR.
I enjoyed the planetary exploration in No Man’s Sky. Some planets have an outpost, but most don’t. In No Man’s Sky there are several alien races and artifacts they left behind you can learn their language from.
There are a huge number of planets, and some have strange reality altering properties. They have different weather and conditions. There is a ginormous amount of alien life that you can catalogue and interact with and even tame. The planets themselves show a huge variety of differences. There is even underground and underwater environments with unique life suited to those environments.
The base building is fun. You can do a lot and you can even travel to galactic hubs and worlds that other players have worked on.
Even travelling through space is more fun. You are able to fly to planets and land on them seamlessly. You can own several different space ships and even giant freighters that can contain your ships and frigates you can send to other star systems.
I do enjoy the zen of NMS (nothing like piloting alone on the surface of a planet with the sound of the rain falling on the cockpit), but even after all those years and cool upgrades, it still feels so empty… If you enjoy tabletop RPGs and have an opportunity to play one with like-minded friends, I recommend you try Traveller. It’s all those things you mentioned, in a way, way bigger and denser scope. :) Also with actual civilizations, empires, politics, commerce, wars, fleets, etc.
