Imagine a world that is completely open to you. Every star in the sky is a solar system with planets that you can travel to and discover anything and everything they have to offer. In a world so unthinkably huge, you could be anything at all. If this sounds like some science-fiction fantasy, you're right, it is. But that doesn't mean you can't experience it.

No Man's Sky is a brand new action-adventure video game developed by Hello Games for PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows. The basic premise of the game is what I described in the last paragraph. You begin on a planet somewhere in the giant galaxy that the game takes place in, and from there you have practically unlimited options. You could mine that planet for resources, you can make friends (or enemies) of the wildlife living there, you can learn the language and history of the indigenous people, or you can fix your ship and fly up into outer space in any direction you desire.

Some people will become interstellar pirates, and attack other ships for their cargo, some will become traders and fly to and from trading outposts with resources and technology they've found on whatever planet they might have just come from. To many, the goal is to reach the center of the galaxy. However, to do this, an adventurer must upgrade his or her ship to have enough warp and cargo capabilities, because you will never reach the center of the galaxy without warp, and you need to be able to store lots of resources because they are all consumable.

The artwork in this game is simply phenomenal. You can spend hours just walking around a single planet admiring the scenery! Like the real world, each planet is unique, and most everything on the planet is unique. You can come across an Earth-type planet, or one that is entirely submerged in purple water, or red minerals! It's not like Minecraft where you can walk around and every sheep and every tree looks the same. In No Man's Sky, everything you encounter is generated as you encounter it. Star systems and planets are in the same place, it doesn't move around, but you get to discover (and rename) everything for yourself.

So go out there and explore the universe! Just be careful of space pirates.