So I was a day one supporter of NMS and I got possibly my best game yet going. On XBOX Series S, I was originally on PS4. Love the better graphics!

I’m in Euclid, in the Xicorr system on a paradise moon called Rawa. Contrary to the hellhole it “rotates around of”, Rawa is lush, peaceful, inhabitated only by three different species of birds, is in a Vykeen system and has an economy based around ore-processing. And that’s good, because I love mining. So after visiting every planet and moon in Xicorr, I made Rawa my home once I’m invited to build a base.

And then it gets better.

I find a nice Vykeen settlement. It has a trade terminal, a blueprints / component seller and a landing pad. AND, and what looks like a very promising cobalt mine within sight. Again, love that shit. So I build myself a nice little 3×3 wood shack with some basic amenities, use the Vykeen outpost’s landing pad as mine (Shouldn’t they have a problem with that?). Called it Ranesota, which is what the game called that region. And then I go mine. And mine and mine and mine. Deeper and deeper. No end to those caves, just chockfull of cobalt. I get around 5M units worth of Cobalt out of there in total, totally cleaned the place.

So I go back to my shack, and I build a teleporter because I’ll want to comeback here easilly right. I want to research Solar Panels to power my Teleporter or whatever you call that gate, so I go on the hunt for salvaged data. I find a very minor settlement with a grumpy Vykeen inside and nothing else about 500u East…. and i get the silly idea to build a TUNNEL to his place. So I lineup my ship’s icon and I start digging. And digging. And digging. A long-ass time. After popping out in the open a couple times and having to dig down to keep going, I finally pop out behind Ranesota. That’s my tunnel, that’s INFRASTRUCTURE. I build a path with boulders leading to the entrance and a gate around the hole.

Haven’t found the buried modules I wanted to, so I start walking west this time. And I catch many modules, many knowledge stones…….. and I keep going, I figure I should get a lot of these to build my stuff and understand what my neighbors are saying… then my scanner / analysis visor spots a “Minor Settlement”. Figured, might as well go check it out…. 1000u out. Heh, my planet has no weather to speak of, always sunny and nice… let’s go….

I find it….. Trade terminal, a blueprints / component seller and a landing pad. Nice, that means another base. And I realise I’m now 15 minutes away from Ranesota, so this works for me. Build another shack. Call it Haller after a nearby region that was called Haller’s Last Stand……. Call my ship to the landing pad for no apparent reason……. and I decide I’m hopping on it going home and building a tunnel between Ranesota and Haller. They are 15 minutes apart.

So I line up the Haller icon and I start digging. I pop out a bunch of time, keep digging down and then back up always lining up with Haller…. eventually I pop out, and I try to dig down….. and it won’t dig. I’m on the bedrock. So I look around where I am… this is ANOTHER magnificient COBALT MINE just like I love em. I’m 5 minutes away from Ranesota and 9 minutes away from Haller in this closed pocket with no other (apparent, so far) entry point than my tunnel.

I’ve already hauled for a million units’ worth of Cobalt from it back to my ore-loving neighbors in Ranesota and it’s still pretty full. I’ve made another HUGE gate around the entry point to this tunnel…………

I mean.. the SCOPE of this game. You can start doing your own thing outside the narrative of the game completely and it just feeds you and keeps you going. This is amazing!

Now my fear is of course, Frontiers comes and buries all my digging and changes my paradise to a toxic hell, I hope not.

I bought NMS on PS4, pre-ordered actually. I was playing it the moment the game became available and I loved it. I unfortunately ran out of things to do completed whatever you consider the main quest of the game at the time. I put it down promising to go back to it when it got better.

I believe I returned to the game around a year or so later. They had just implemented the ability to buy freighters and had the base building implemented. I ended up becoming a father shortly after and didn’t have much time for the game unfortunately.

Jump a little over 2 years in time and I decided now that I have a Series X that I would get back into the game. Boy was I excited to see all the new features and the beautiful updates. After exploring the first 4 out of 5 planets in my starting System, they were all quite hazardous in one way or another with basic flora and fauna of little interest. So I proceed to shoot over to the 5th and last planet in the system. I land and find that the planet has no real environmental hazards. I start to do a little exploring and scanning the various fauna on the planet. Out of nowhere the ground begins to shake violently and a snake the size of a skyscraper comes bursting out of the ground right in front of me. Now keep in mind that I was excited for this game before it’s actual release. That trailer they showed off before the game released, the one with the giant snake like creature, had me so excited to play the game and see such sights. I was very disappointed to find out that they did not exist in the game at the time. so seeing this massive creature leaping out of the ground in front of me had me literally screaming in excitement like a child.

Thank you Hello Games for sticking with your game and keeping the promises. That moment made my excitement for the game originally feel finally completely justified.

I apologize if my flair choice isn’t appropriate. I wasn’t sure which this really fell under.