Hello Gammers, HelloGames … oh well.

Don’t worry, this is constructive. I have over 500h on Permadeath and countless others in other modes and I am soon restarting all over again, I love this game.

These days I was wondering what made me want to actualy play another “open world survival” game that is so much smaller, and I noticed something. That game has somethings very small, easy to implement, but that ends up creating a strange sense of novelty every time you replay. That game is Subnautica.

You see, in Subnautica you have a small dread of the unknown, of finding something … dangerous. Lurking around. So even when you are an experienced player who literally knows where every dangerous area/creature is, it is still thrilling to get near those areas, to enter and dare the big challenge.

I miss that on NMS. The game has none of that, the most danger you get is tame compared to that. And lets face it, in the vastness of the universe, you are just as likelly to find cute rideable unicorn-bears, as something that will eat you – whole.

So why not do this tiny bit change. Some planets can have something powerful, something sinister, either on the depths of the oceans or the high mountains. And they don’t need to be that big, but should be respectable, visible, loud.

The idea is not to put something that will scare users, that will make someone rage quit they lost their progress. The idea is to put something that has fair warning, that tells you “dude, you shouldn’t be here, I hope you know what you are doing”. And if you are up to it, you don’t need rewards, you only need the thrill of slaying that thing, of putting your foot down (because if you add unique rewards to very hard encounters, the more casual players won’t really like it a bit).

Something that I miss in Subnautica (and NMS), is the possibility of large creatures to actually damage your base. Sure, 99.99% of people wouldn’t build a base nowhere near these dangerous creatures, but what if I wanted? what if I want to dare? Build a base with redudancies and extra layers of protection to stand that sandwork, that winged demon? the treachearous boss abomination?

And same in space. From time to time you should bump into something that will scare you. The random encounters right now are silly, you chuckle and go away, mark down one more encounter you hadn’t experienced yet. But what if you encounter something that tells you …. no, not even going to scan it, I’m out of here.

So, a little sense of awe, of dread, not necessarily always leading to death and loss, but to get out of there, or maybe, let’s face this thing!

And its not even hard to do it. Get some big assets, put huge HP, some good damage (but not one-hit kill), and some rules on where it can spawn (planet type, star system type). Maybe even just tweak the already existing random encounters, and then add some 5 new mobs that could even look the same everywhere, but for that reason … you know what it is, and its time to run.

I have been playing since 2016 when it came out, but the realization didn’t hit me until today. There’s so much beauty in the game. The universe of this game created itself. Every flora, fauna, behavior of living creatures, the terrain, the cave systems, the oceans, the trees, almost everything if not everything, was generated by an engine. Not even the developers know what everything in NMS is. This is nothing new, of course, but with the added fact that there are 255 galaxies and 18 quintillion worlds in this game still puts me in awe. The people who did the math said it would take about 500 billion+ years to explore every galaxy, star system, planet, anomaly, and space station in the game.

You will never explore all of NMS. Your children will never explore all of NMS, nor your great grandchildren, nor your great-grandchildren’s great-grandchildren’s great-grandchildren and so on. If the game manages to live on for thousands of years and years to come (it likely won’t but for argument sake let’s say it does), it will likely still not be fully explored and people who find old bases (As it will likely be easier to find old player bases) from these previous and close following years will be as abandoned and relic like as the already implemented ruins we find on planets that we didn’t build. The visuals are insane. Warping into a new start system and seeing the sun (or suns!) with their glow and shine reflecting off the corners of solar system gets me every time. The faint glow of distant stars and the color of your star system are miraculous to see, even if you have been playing this game for about 6 years.

The music is another thing altogether, sometimes it sounds sad, sometimes it sounds fast and action packed, but for the most part there’s a common theme; loneliness and solitude in a vast universe. The music is the perfect mix between sad, ominous, and nostalgic that perfectly makes you realize: “Damn. I’m alone here in this void.” Of course Hello Games implemented ways to see other players and do missions with them, but just the normal feel of the game still makes you feel lonely. It’s great, and 65daysofstatic couldn’t have done a better job.

No Man’s Sky is not just a space exploration game, it’s an infinite feeling mysterious space exploration flight simulator survival economy trading game, with a great soundtrack, a overarching story that gives you an existential crisis, and a redemption story better than Avatar: The last Airbender.

I’ve played 7 hours in one sitting, safe to say that I am really digging the game.

I played as far as going to a new solar system but for whatever reason the game started giving me a new set of objectives, so I built up a base, blew up some pirates, got some upgrades and whatnot. I figured that was the gameplay loop and that was what I was in for for the rest of the game.

Then I go and find Artemis’ coordinates and board the Space Anomaly and suddenly… There are other players now? It’s a hub? They all have incredible looking avatars and ships? One guy even gifted me some cool items just because I ran past him.

I’m suddenly hit with this feeling that this game is even more absolutely gigantic than I had thought it was and while I’m very excited about that, it’s a bit overwhelming. Is the universe consistent for all players and how they interact with it, kinda like an MMO but not? How does it work exactly? Can other players see my bases, even if they’re not in my game? Can I see theirs? Is multiplayer the best way to enjoy the game? Can people see what I name planets, or whatever?

Also, any basic advice for a total noob with absolutely no idea what the game has to offer? I’ve realised I don’t know anything about this game. Any spoiler-free advice/explanations/information for someone just starting out would be really appreciated.

Thanks so much guys 😁 So excited to play more of this game