No Man's Sky: An intergalactic Minecraft and beyond
No Man’s Sky (NMS), an open-world exploration-survival game developed and published by Hello Games, has grown immensely since its release in August 2016 for PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows.
Since then, No Man’s Sky has become available on Xbox One, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and Series S consoles. It has VR capabilities, which provide an even more subversive experience.
Similar to Minecraft, in No Man’s Sky “ you're surviving procedurally generated planets by mining resources, upgrading equipment, and flying from one star system to the next.”
There are 255 unique galaxies composed of 3 to 4 billion regions that contain more than 122 star systems each. The more you explore, the larger the file on your computer or console becomes.
There are five game modes: normal, survival, permadeath, creative and community expedition.
Normal offers an infinite journey of exploration and survival.
Survival has more hazards, a smaller inventory and increased material costs when compared to normal.
Permadeath is an extreme survival challenge where there is no respawning; when you die, you die.
Creative allows the player to explore and create freely with no costs, damage or limits. The community expedition allows players to undertake a time-limited expedition for special rewards.
There are four races of aliens: Vy’keen, Gek, Korvax and what the player is, Traveler. At first, the player knows nothing of the languages and cultures of the different aliens.
There are 400 Vy’keen, Gek and Korvax words the player must learn (Travelers speak English) by interacting with knowledge stones, learning from aliens, or using monoliths.
Depending on how the player practices the languages will impact the player’s standing with the different races, and how the player behaves in space. For example, shooting at a random freighter will decrease standing with the dominant race of that system, but killing pirates will do the opposite.
The player’s standing with each race impacts their interactions with members of that race.
No Man’s Sky offers stories players can follow, unlike Minecraft. Without giving away too much, the player meets Nadia and Polo, leaders of a community of Travelers aboard the Anamoly. The player has the option to follow the Atlas, something claiming to be the creator that all Travelers warn the player to avoid.
Each of these game modes can be played on or offline. Playing offline has its disadvantages. For example, Quicksilver is one of the three currencies on No Man’s Sky that is only earnable through missions at the Nexus on the Anomaly.
Units are the most common, Nanites less so, and Quicksilver is the hardest to come by. Offline, the Nexus does not offer Quicksilver in exchange for challenges.
No Man’s Sky is an incredibly complex and truly infinite game.
Bugs and glitches are to be expected but have gotten better over time.
Hello Games makes constant updates, making gameplay that much better each time. I have spent almost two days in playtime on NMS, and I find it relaxing to be reminded of how small we are, especially as we learn that we aren’t alone in this infinite universe.
