I just finished the “Prayers to the Machine” questline last night and I’d really want to debate some of the more philosophical and theological aspects of this game.

Because boy, does this game run deep.

(Don’t read this post if you just started the game and don’t want spoilers.)

So we know by now that the entire ingame universe of No Man’s Sky is a simulation, run by The Atlas. Some consider the Atlas to be a God. After all, it created the universe and seems to have full control over everything. Except it doesn’t. And the Atlas isn’t a God. It’s an artificial intelligence that might think it’s a God and it seems to be going quite mad because it seems to be sensing its impending death within 16 seconds, minutes, hours or whatever.

Personally, I think this is brilliant and strangely relatable. I personally believe in God, but I struggle with the concept of God as an emotional benevolent entity. I’ve always figured that if God is eternal and loving, He would go mad from the emotional strain. Still, I try.

At the ending of the autophage quest, there were two screens that really caught me in terms of philosophical and theological depths:

(I apologize for the phone-screenshot… screenshotting seems to crash my pc these days…)

When the confrontation with the Atlas culminated into this, I thought: yes, this is it! Information as immortality. One of the core aspects of Reformational philosophy (as I’ve understood it) is that we are known to God: God knows and loves us and this knowledge makes our lives eternal. We cannot be erased, even if we don’t know God.

https://preview.redd.it/oy6d03pcu6sb1.jpg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4684b57c3534cc65f454f7d9a14aef55804a25fe

Another aspect of the Autophage that I really love is how they are fundamental rejects, but return as a sort of saviors and givers of new hope and friendship. There is hope because whatever was destroyed can be rebuild.

I just thought it was really, really awesome that as a player we can give the Atlas hope. Maybe that’s our purpose as humans: wonder, explore, in the deep conviction that there’s always more beauty than we can ever imagine.