After immersing myself in the universe of No Man’s Sky for ~500 hours (and still playing everyday), in the past few weeks I also decided to dive into other games of the same genre, namely Starfield, Elite Dangerous, and Star Citizen; only to come to a conclusion that No Man’s Sky is on a whole level of its own.

The quintessential distinction? Realism – or rather, the lack thereof. Unlike its counterparts, No Man’s Sky liberates itself from the shackles of realism. It’s an experience that transcends mere gameplay mechanics; it’s a sensation that permeates the very essence of exploration. I call it “the magic feeling”.

I’ll give you an example: on my very first few hours of gameplay, I discovered an animal that was an amalgamation of eyeballs inside a jelly-like ball. I remember thinking “this is a bit dumb and lazy, no way a creature like that would ever exist” but ironically it kept me intrigued to the point where I adopted it. This creature, far from adhering to the constraints of reality, opened up a whole new precedent: that ANYTHING could exist in this game, because bio-realism was not a factor. And that is where the “magic feeling” kicked. Each encounter after sparked wonder, which wasn’t a thing in the other titles. It’s this departure from the norm, this embrace of the surreal and odd, that infuses No Man’s Sky with an unparalleled sense of magic.

However, in the most ironic twist ever, the game’s biggest strength is also its major flaw: without the prospect of realism bounding us, there’s a very limited amount of creatures and biomes! After 100h you start to feel you’ve seen it all, which is insane to think about when there’s procedural generation into play. Let’s compare it with Pokémon for instance, which has around 1000 different species while No Man’s Sky only has apparently 35. Of course from those 35 you then have thousands of different animals, but they’re all a mix-n-match of parts.

But to circle back to my initial point: even with biomes, despite a limited amount, there’s a magical feeling that comes with the design style. An hexagon planet? Wow (the first time you see it). Fiery planets with mushroom-shaped trees in the style of volcanos? Genius. And so forth.

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