I had just gotten back into the game back when expedition 5 was juuuuuuuust about to end, and my joy at doing the new expeditions (the first one I did since they implemented new expeditions) was cut short after only a few hours.

Even though I didn’t make much progress, I thought it was really fun. I got distracted and completely missed the sixth expedition, but I was right on time for Leviathan. I didn’t think much of the permadeath mode as they said it was going to have roguelike elements, and roguelike is one of my favourite genres (over a thousand hours in Binding of Isaac).

I died a handful of times as I’d never played on survival (or permadeath) before, but those deaths were all around the beginning, no more than an hour in. I learned that I had to play much safer if I was going to progress.

And progress I did. I got all the way to the third phase and was having a lot of fun. Until I landed on a toxic planet and realized I had no toxic protection. Dead.

Allllll the way back to the starting planet. And what progress was saved? Basically nothing. Three of the optional mission rewards, giving a handful of upgrades to ship and exosuit inventory. That’s it.

Progression on everything else, gone. All the data for the missions wiped (save for the final optional ones). Was it a glitch? Probably not. I guess I overestimated the “roguelike” elements that they made for this expedition. I would honestly say that they have no business using that term because the “progression” that is saved is nothing more than a hollow shell of the experience I had.

I had fun up until that death, but not enough to do the whole thing over again. I think I’ll just start up a new save and play like I used to, and hope the next expedition is better. Would have loved to have played the previous expeditions, too. I think it’s a little disappointing that they’re limited events.

Thanks for reading my rant, I guess. Hope everyone else had more fun than I did this go around. Cheers.

Sometimes NMS will give me a small existential crisis, not a huge panic attack or anything, but just a thought that comes and goes every once in a while when I’m playing. The game ha so many world that it would take the player almost 900 billion years to see them all. The game has about 18 quintillion planets after all. This makes me just think for a moment about how small we are and how impossibly have the universe is, and how we will never even leave our system in our lifetimes, and how the chances of this happening to anybody in the future are slim. We will never get to see any of this, we just get to see this tiny rock we live on. But about a minute later, this thought fades away and I continue mining for copper, waving to other players in VR, fighting space pirates, or whatever I was doing before. I appreciate NMS for giving us the chance to see all of this that we otherwise never would have.

TL;DR NMS sometimes gives me a small existential crisis where I am reminded about how big the universe is, how small we are, and how we will never explore any of it.

Now, since this is a discussion, have you ever felt this way while playing?