No Man’s Sky has had my interest for quite sometime, I honestly can’t even remember when I first heard about it, but when I did, I knew that I would love the concept. Hello Games wanted to take us to space, but not space in our galaxy, space in another galaxy where your goal is to get to the center of the universe. Sounds like a blast to me; however when I first heard of this game I read that it would be a download only title on the PlayStation 4. That worried me seeing as my hard drive was getting fuller and fuller. What worried me even more was the fact that in this game you can visit any star, any planet basically anyplace you see, which means it is set to be a huge game. The announcement of a physical release has re-sparked my interest, and I’ve become super excited for June 21.
The first thing that caught my eye when I saw images from this game was the fact that every image I saw reminded me of the 1960’s. I don’t know if it was the color pallet or just space travel in general, but these images took me back to the old sci-fi comics like Solar: Man of the Atom and brought back some great memories. I enjoy that era’s pop culture and many of the comic books, and just to be clear I wasn’t alive back then, I was lucky enough to have some of the Solar archives that I read and drew the comparison. Seeing a game fully realized with these pastels and that motif throughout really draws me in. As I stare at the screenshots of the game I can’t help but think this is how the 60’s looked, with the colors and the dream for the stars that President Kennedy made a reality.
As more and more information is being released about this game, I can’t even fathom how many hours I plan to spend exploring the stars. Your character can be many things: a fighter, a trader, a scavenger and just a plain old explorer, but I’m guessing you’ll have to do all these things to survive. Staying alive on these hostile environments will not be easy; you’ll have to kill predatory beasts, withstand the weather and climate and find supplies to keep you alive and continue your journey. These supplies will fuel your ship, will help you craft items, will keep your life support in tact and so on. Being someone with OCD, I’m going to love finding all of these supplies and elements to make my spacesuit and spaceship better. My OCD will make me the best of the best of the best.
You will be landing on planets that no one has explored, in game and in real life, so no walkthrough will exist if you get stuck. That brings out the Dark Souls love in me; only this time absolutely no help inbound from a website or even a friend who is playing. For quite sometime, you will truly be on your own in this game, and that is fascinating to me. I grew up in a time where there was no internet, no walkthroughs and all I had were expensive guides that my parents would not buy and 1-800 numbers that were also too costly. Flying around space with only my wits and whatever supplies I can scavenge or trade for seems like many amazing nights at home. I cannot wait to land on a planet, name said planet and then begin exploring the planet so I can delve further towards the center of the universe.
I plan on saving and scrimping so that I can pre-order this game for a Day One release. Since my generation was born too soon to actually explore the stars, it is nice that Hello Games will be giving us a little taste of what future generations may have the joy of doing. Hello Games has been very smart releasing little tid-bits here and there because I salivate for more and more news about this insanely original IP. Originality is something that developers and publishers have been losing for a long time. It is nice to see a company come out with something that is not only original, but something that can make money and show other developers that there is money to be had in said original concept. I can only hope to find out more about No Man’s Sky in the next several months to add to my excitement.