It’s funny, but despite the fact that I have over 150 hours on my current save, I still haven’t completed the main story. In fact, I’ve never finished the game, and this is my third attempt at it.

Without fail, I always end up going back to the simple things. Often I’ll just drive around a desolate planet, or drift aimlessly through space. Other times, I’ll spend an hour or two building little settlements that I can call home for a while as I watch a storm roll by. With the game’s incredible ambient score behind it all, none of that feels wasteful. I’m just there, in my own isolated corner of the galaxy, simply getting by. Why that’s so satisfying, I honestly don’t know, but in a world where videogames are mired in the illusion of progression by default, just being, existing out there with no other goal in mind but to just be, feels like a relief from time to time. I wish there were more games like that.