I have many rules when it comes to video games. They range from how to conduct yourself during multiplayer games all the way to buying video games. The biggest rule of mine that I have emphasized to my friends in recent years is "do not pre-order video games." It serves no purpose anymore with the coming of the digital age. Recently, gamers have been tricked with downgraded games like Watch Dogs and almost anything published by Ubisoft these days. Companies try to get their sheep-like customers to pre-order their games through various techniques like offering exclusive weapons or outfits only available to pre-ordered versions of the game. I have only pre-ordered two games in my life, NBA 2K16 and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. I pre-ordered those two games because the track record of the companies that created those games were astounding and fantastic, and I was able to pre-load them on Steam so I could play them on the midnight release. Yesterday, I broke my major rule of pre-ordering again for a certain game called No Man's Sky.
What is No Man's Sky? No Man's Sky is a game focused around the exploration of the universe. You play as an explorer and have a spaceship with various tools that you use to make your way to the center of the universe. The biggest feature of No Man's Sky is the ability of the player to be able to physically walk among the planets they see. These planets are not small cities that you are forced into. They are huge and random planets that you discover. You can walk in a straight line for days on a planet and still not come close to where you started. You might be asking yourself, "How is that possible?" Video games like Grand Theft Auto V only cover a Los Angeles-like area, and that game is over fifty gigabytes. No Man's Sky contains eighteen quintillion planets that require days to explore, at least. The game's universe is so large that if a planet was discovered every second, it would take 585 billion years to find them all! This game has to be massive! How large is it?
No Man's Sky is only six gigabytes.
How? No Man's Sky's vast universe is possible by procedural generation. This is all possible through algorithms and random number generators that create everything in the universe. Each planet is generated along with all of its plants, animals, climates, aliens, and more. This means that every planet you land on will have unique animals, plants, and more that only you can find, unless someone else manages to discover the same planet in the massive universe.
Exploration is not the only thing you are required to do in the universe of No Man's Sky. Depending on the type of player you choose to be, you can focus in trading, fighting, pure exploration, or all three! There are several types of ships you can purchase in the game to accommodate these play styles. You can choose to never pick a fight in the universe and just gather rare minerals from planets and sell them at space centers in another part of the universe for upgrades. Or you can be a fearless pilot that chooses who to fight and who to fight with. If neither one of those are your cups of tea, then you can just focus on exploring the universe.
Not much else is known about the game. Hello Games, the creators of No Man's Sky, have made it a point to only give enough information to create curiosity among gamers so that when the game is released there is an abundance of fun to be found. Some might view that as them trying to hide the shallowness of the game, but others think it is Hello Games saving the best for the gamers. In a world full of information and data leaks, maybe mystery is the best thing for everyone.
Despite not knowing everything about the game, I pre-ordered No Man's Sky because I want to discover things that no one has. I want to fly around the universe all by myself and explore the jungles and tundras that await me and my ship. From what interviews that I've seen that include Sean Murray, the founder of Hello Games, I can tell that this is not a company trying to take people's money. They aren't cashing in on recent Star Trek and Star Wars successes. They are fully interested in giving gamers the best exploration game ever created and are already making the first update for the game before it's release date! If the rest of the team is just as passionate as Sean Murray looks to be, this could be a game that could win Game of the Year for 2016, and a game that will be looked back on as a classic.
No Man's Sky releases on PC and PS4 on August 9, 2016 and is available for pre-ordering today.
