No Man’s Sky: First impressions

No Man’s Sky is officially out, and the game is absolutely huge. Here are our first impressions after playing for a couple of hours.

The hype is definitely real for No Man’s Sky. Since its inception, developer Hello Games has been hard at work to deliver a game that’s never been done before. Ever since it was announced back in 2014, it was pretty evident that this game is something special. We have played other open world games that are full of interactive elements and beautiful scenery, but as soon as you start up No Man’s Sky, you instantly realize that it’s something like no other.

As you start the game, there’s barely an intro screen or a tutorial that shows you what you’ll be doing. There’s a brief cinematic that looks like a ship traveling at light speed through the galaxy. Shortly after, you’re immediately in the game, placed in a massive world, and you have no idea what to do. The first thing you see is a ship that needs to be prepared, so as soon as you see that, you’re prompted to look for certain elements and supplies that will help you repair your ship and travel the rest of the planet.

As you travel the planet on foot, there are certain plants and rocks that you can destroy in exchange for supplies. These supplies can be used to restore your health and armor, your thruster pack or je tpack so that you can fly up to higher ground, upgrade your weapons (including a mining gun to mine supplies) or combat weapons to defeat enemies. The funny thing is nothing really attacks you in the game.

There are certain drones that may become aggressive toward you once you start destroying certain environmental elements, and once that happens, you have the option to destroy them or run away to safety. If you destroy them, they drop barrels that also contain items that may be useful to your journey.

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Getting back to the ship, once you gather the necessary supplies to repair it, you can get inside to begin your real journey. It’s once you get inside the ship that realize just how huge the planet is. There are so many options to consider. From gathering more supplies to discovering new areas to even discovering new types of species, there’s always something new to encounter, which keeps you intrigued and gives you even more incentive to travel.

As you travel, whether flying on your ship or traveling by foot, icons on the map represent different points to which you can travel. Once you reach a certain icon, some of these destinations can be save points. They’re also new areas that you have discovered, so you cross them off the map and move on to the next destination.

The final aspect to discuss on are the waypoints. Some of these icons are waypoints that you can activate. Once activated, you’re prompted to travel to a certain area on the planet, which indicates that there’s an undiscovered life form in that vicinity. Once you reach that destination, there’s a base-like area to visit and alien life forms to greet. They speak their native languages, and learning these languages is definitely an option as you can learn certain words by discovering certain things on the planet, but usually, they want something from you. If you can’t give them what they want, your relationship with that species is in jeopardy. So if you can’t please them, they’ll usually ignore your requests and consider you an outsider.

So far, that’s as far as we’ve gotten with No Man’s Sky. As you can see, this game is extremely detailed in every aspect, and we haven’t even scratched the surface of what this game can do and what you can accomplish in it. The game is beautiful and it’s definitely something different, but it’s an absolute grind. If you don’t have much time on your hands, then the game may not be for you since a lot of your time will definitely be invested in it.

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However, it’s definitely worth playing because there’s definitely nothing else like it. No Man’s Sky has revolutionized the open world aspect in video games, and this is evident with just a few hours of gameplay. The game is said to have 18 quintillion planets to explore, so you can just imagine what else you can find.