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.

A bit of a vague title, but the truth nonetheless. I got in to No Man’s Sky somewhat late; a couple of expansions dropped, the tide already turned. No Man’s Sky was seen as a decent game, lots was achieved after launch.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun! The first couple of hours were mesmerizing, and I was excited to see what was to come. Fast forward about 50-60 hours, and I was already kind of done with the game. I was earning millions of units with an Activated Indium farm, something that was recommended to me by the many YouTube ‘guide’ videos surrounding this game. I had reloaded a Freighter battle almost 50 times and achieved a Capital S-Class Freighter. I had a massive farm that I used for nanites. I was maxing out my inventory and I finished building somewhat of a base.

Now what? That was the question I had, and it never really went away. Somehow I felt as if I didn’t really ‘complete’ the game, but I also no longer had a goal to work towards. I was earning an absurd amount of units, with nothing to really spend it on. I no longer had any motivation to engage in the vast majority of the systems the game had laid out, because why would I? The rewards gained from exploration were not worth it, I wouldn’t gain anything from it.

I briefly played on both a hardcore and a permadeath save, but after getting the associated achievements, I realized that the changes these game modes provided were not the changes I was looking for. If anything, they seemed detrimental somehow; on top of not having a goal once I set up a few farms somewhere, I now also had to fight a limited inventory system for naught but a level of tedium. If this was No Man’s Sky but difficult, I realized that I did not desire ‘difficulty’ in this game.

I stopped having fun, so I stopped playing.

Then, some time later, I realized that I messed up. I realized that No Man’s Sky, for all of its faults, is not meant to be min/maxed, at least, not for me. I hopped into the game again, determined to go against what I normally do in games like these. This time, I did not rush any sort of farm for mass units and nanites. I did not hop around systems to find the perfect S-Class Freighter. I did not look up any ship catalogues, or teleporter coordinates for valuable exotics or multi-tools. I even started roleplaying my traveler a little bit.

Man, what a world of difference. Suddenly, I find myself having something to work towards constantly. No longer do I skip over 90% of the content in the game because it’s ‘not valuable enough’. I get excited when I find a cool treasure that’s worth a lot of units, or when I find a crashed freighter somewhere. It’s fun to scour planets and systems alike for valuable targets, resources, and settlements.

This might sound totally obvious to a lot of you, but I can’t begin to tell you the epiphany I had when I started playing the game like this. This is what No Man’s Sky is meant to be. It’s not a space economy simulator, it’s a space exploration game. And though that is apparent everywhere in the game, it somehow took me over a year to realize that.

So to all of you who got bored with the game due to a lack of goals, or because making money/nanites etc. is ‘too easy’, try a different approach. Maybe you shouldn’t go for an Activated Indium farm. Maybe it’s best to delete that generous gift from some player in the Anomaly that’s worth millions upon millions. I’ve learned that when I try to game No Man’s Sky, I simply end up gaming myself out of tens, if not hundreds of hours of fun.

See you Space Cowboys…