I had watched the launch of this fall flat and disregarded this game. However I heard rumours of patch spam and many improvements so I added it back to my faithful steam library and dived in…. WOW! This game is literally jaw droppingly good! Being a veteran from original Elite right through to ED and anything else space faring … I’d put this easily in the top 3 of all time space games.

The variety is incredible. The learning curve is ok. You can do whatever you want to do….fight, trade, build, explore. The only slight thing is lack of pvp but that’s probably down to the size of the game. It is massive….

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I remember when NMS came out and I heard about how the game was disappointing and people accused the devs of so much stuff. I didn’t know much about the game at the time so I don’t know the details, I just know that many considered it a flop. I remember later on looking at it in Steam and saw it was something like Overwhelmingly Negative or Very Negative, which was surprising because at the time I NEVER saw a game with that low a rating.

Much later on, this game just kept popping up on my feed and stuff. I remember going to see the reviews and saw one user praising the game because of how the devs pulled this game out of the hole it was in, and a short while later I added it to my wishlist. It just kept popping up and up, and years went by. One day, two weeks ago, I was just out of games, and I was entering a point in my life where I was moving from Action/Adventure/RPG games into more relaxing crafting games (which I never considered earlier in life. I loved Subnautica and Planet Crafter, Frost Punk.

Well, guess what? The game popped up again, and I saw the rating had risen to Mostly Positive. This was no mere feat. So I decided to get it. I love it!

I always loved structure and a clear mission in games, but for the first time I found myself just leaving the main mission aside and just discovering stuff and upgrading my equipment. It was really fun and really beautiful! I took a 4 day break and made a new save (I still haven’t reached my furthest milestone, communicating with Null for the first time).

I love the multitools the technlogies and so much stuff! I love upgrading the starship. But, of course, there are caveats.

-When I first played, the story progression seemed uneven and incoherent. It’s clearer now the second time, but I still think it can be worked on.

-A lot of stuff isn’t well-explained (and so don’t make sense). Beacons, charts, signals, waypoints etc. I remember someone saying this is due to the game going through so many updates, which is a reasonable explanation. I’m OK with this.

-A big negative for me is -sadly- the planets. I have to be fair, it isn’t easy procedurally generating a ridiculous amount of planets and making them all unique, and the undertaking is one so grand flaws are bound to pop up, but it can’t be brushed under the rug.

I love how they look from space, they’re so beautiful and awe-inspiring and unique. But when you land on them, they feel far less unique. This last run I found two very unique planets, a “foaming” planet with so many bubbles in the atmosphere, and a volcanic moon which was awesome since it’s the first one I found, and it looks like Mordor from Lord of the Rings. But many of them aren’t very interesting in terms of terrain, they seem to be the same kind of “rocky”. And I think that dampens things.

One of the problems is how planets seem to painted over with this single color. Sure, a planet may be green, but it doesn’t look as interesting when it’s almost entirely greenish. Or entirely reddish. A bit of contrast and variety go a long way. This is probably why I find snowy planets and water planets way more interesting, there’s more contrast going on, and I wish this applied to way more planets.

–Animals. This goes along with the previous point. I remember getting a pet for the first time and loved it! (apparently this is a relatively new update?) I never get pets in games and don’t care about it, but something about it is really appealing in this game. I love the cute animals, especially the crab-like ones!

But to be honest, aside from the very few, most animals are just ugly to look at. Like I look at the image in my discovery tab and I think “if this thing was real I might kill it.” that’s how ugly most creatures are to me. A lot of them have this small head on a big body that looks weird, and the way so many of them don’t have snouts or noses make them look a bit too “human” and it’s real creepy. Maybe I’m alone in this, but it’s just what I thought.

Also, for some reason, animals have very little variety when it comes to colors. They’re almost always this dull greenish shade of grey. Why? I have no idea. I’m hoping this changes.

-Planets are great to find and catalogue, and finding all animals is a fun way to get more nanites. But I find that once I land on a planet, I’m rarely motivated into exploring it. The first few are fine, and finding some materials is important, but in regards to the structures it feels very copy-pastey. I don’t know how this would be tackled, maybe more uniqe NPCs? More unique planets with certain structures? I actually read planets have different biomes (which I didn’t know), I only know there are caves and there’s underwater. It’s fun finding something new such as an underwater ruin, and I’m glad I played this game blind and avoided watching anything, makes every little thing a nice surprise. But most of the time, I explore a small patch of that planet.

-One thing I forgot to mention in regards to First Contact planets. These are more plentiful than I initially thought, since on my first run I started in an already discovered system, and the second system I visited was also discovered with the exception of a far away planet (tucked behind another planet, which is why it wasn’t discovered I guess). I just think it’s kind of odd to be making first contact an then finding some outpost with two merchants on it.

If what I read is true, and that the amount of planets is gargantuan in this game (which I don’t undrstand how it works), I honestly would have preferred to have far fewer planets while making them more unique.

-I’ve had 3 starships before. Bummer that I can’t customize them, which I assumed I could. I would’ve loved a system like Borderland’s with guns, different parts have different properties. Oh well.

-Just curious; I heard I get a freighter! Is this something I get with the storyline? Or do I have to go out of my way to get it? If it’s the first I’ll gladly wait for the surprise.

So yeah, I love this game! I actually look forward to playing more! It’s a lot of fun, and seeing how there are so many crazy updates I’m looking forward to even more updates and playing my first expedition! (I just hope they don’t drop this game now that I’m playing it).

Thank you for reading.