Coming out at some undetermined date in the future on PS4 and PC, No Man's Sky looked like an ambitious, unique project from the beginning. Developed by Hello Games, a team of just ten employees whose only other finished games are Joe Danger and Joe Danger 2, it involves a truly gigantic open world, covering the span of a galaxy with each and every planet visitable by the player. Sounds awesome, right? Hello Games sure know it - and they know exactly how to market it, too.
Considering the small scale of their team, No Man's Sky is always going to be a game that has to flatter to deceive a little bit. Procedural generation has to fill in the lines of the world where it would be impossible for ten people to build everything themselves. Complex algorithms determining planet structure, life and atmosphere will shape the galaxy. The aim of the player, they say, is to continually upgrade your ship to get to the centre of the universe. Why? We don't know.
"We don't know" would be used often if you asked anyone that has seen the game in action about it. Hello Games have build their marketing campaign on a no-show, no-tell basis. E3's gameplay demo was curt and abrupt at just three minutes, and felt determined to keep a handful of cards clutched tightly out of view. And by doing this, they're playing the community harder than a Ribena-powered teenager plays Joe Danger.
No Man's Sky already has some of the hallmarks of what we define as a "cult classic". It's a project little-known to those outside the gaming community. It's made by a small team on a modest budget. And it's already picked up a sect of vocal fans that'll spout its praises.
No Man's Sky has become the poster boy for a wholly unlikeable type of gamer - the elitist. I am incredibly hyped for this game, but I'm not the only person reserving some excitement until questions are answered. So little about the mechanics and plot of the game has been revealed that we're beginning to get into a Gabbo situation where we don't have any idea what we're hype for.
This is causing commenters to accuse the game of being repetitive, pointless or rote. I make some of their concerns valid. The "all planets look the same" argument is clearly an invalid one - the game has a gorgeous pastel vibe to it that makes it spring out of the screen at you - but the questions over why you actually play the game remain unanswered by developers. Luckily, we have an army of pious fanboys ready to answer the call of duty.
I've seen No Man's Sky compared to Minecraft, in that it's a sandbox with potential only limited by your imagination. But it's not a comparison that holds true for me, at least from what we know of the game. The scope for player interaction and making the game world your own in Minecraft is huge. The building mechanics allow us to create literally anything we want. No Man's Sky has shown little of the sort so far. Upgrading your ship takes materials, but we haven't been told how that works yet. There's no hint of any sort of construction or crafting on the level of Minecraft yet. Player interaction, too, is uniquely limited. You won't see other players, apparently, but you will see some of the effects other players have had. Wipe out a species in your game, and that one might not feature in another player's. It sounds like an intriguing system but I'm yet to see a reason why it exists beyond just it does. Creature scanning and logging of species in some sort of sci-fi zoology fashion is one confirmed feature, but at the moment all of this is for it's own sake. When it's hand-crafted and hidden out there for you to find, it feels like a reward - Pokemon, for example. With procedural generation, I can't help but feel like you're just throwing yourself into a random number generator and hoping for something unique and worth seeing.
To ask what the point is of No Man's Sky is not to lack imagination. You could say it shows the opposite that people see this grand open world and are desperate to discover the depths and intricacies of exploring it. Some gamers are not wanderers, and some gamers do not enjoy self-motivated upgrade hooks. Hello Games' lack of show and lack of tell is starting to frustrate some, but it's creating a fervour around the game which will only serve it well financially after it releases. I know I can't wait to see what it's all about.
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