The Caveat: Once again the binary review system means I have to leave a red tick in the box when I really don't want to. So let me start by saying this and getting it out of the way - I've got a lot of hours in this game. It's the sort of game you put a lot of hours into. I've got more than my money's worth and at times I've enjoyed it a lot. It's not a bad game, the devs seem to genuinely care and I have high hopes for their future projects. So why the negative review? Because there is no option. I can't in good conscience leave a positive review, because of all the things wrong with it. Do I recommend it? I guess. But there are a LOT of caveats. Slightly Relevant Story Time: So let me tell you a story. When I was in my teens, I spent a lot of hours in Frontier: Elite 2. A LOT of hours. In Frontier Elite 2 there were two main factions (all human descended) who had spread over a limited area of space, with clear cultural differences between the two. Beyond that there was a sort of frontier bit and independent worlds, and then.... nothing. Just planets. So eventually I tooled up my trusty Tiger 2 with a gas scoop and mining rig and travelled 6 months into the beyond (since you needed to maintain the ship every year lest the engine lunch itself a 6 months journey was pushing my luck) to a pristine earth-like, fighing off a billion bandits to get there... somehow landed the ship on the planet and dropped the mining thingy. And I felt like a real explorer! Even though it was just green and the only thing I mined was water. You see, it wasn't easy to do. It needed planning, and serious execution. No matter it was a waste of time in the end and I more or less immediately stopped playing. Never mind that. This game was made in 1993, after all. What is NMS? No question No Man's Sky is an extraordinary piece of engineering. And it is awesome when you first scope out new planets and wotnot. But (extremely grindy storyline aside) there is NO GAME. It's a cosy base-builder. Now a cosy ship-builder. But where's the jeopardy? Where's the mystery in the universe? Procedurally Similar: There are 3 races, who are EVERYWHERE. There is nothing to distinguish them but their avatars. They all have the same missions, the same station designs, the same... everything. If you happen to stumble into a wormhole and end up 167,000 light years away then you'll find the same aliens and the same station design there too! Wait - 167,000 light years away you say? No matter, just step into the teleporter and you can go straight back to your base - even if you don't have a teleporter there! All the above even applies to other galaxies... other dimensions!!! Even better once you have teleported across inconceivable reaches of space and time, step outside the door and somehow your ship has instantaneously made its way across half the galaxy with its 100ly hyperdrive and no fuel left. The same goes for your freighter. In fact, once you have teleports set up you don't really need your ship to get anywhere, unless you're going to explore a bit. And as for exploration... there's lots to discover, but at the same time absolutely nothing to discover. It's too easy. It's all too easy - making landfall on a new planet should be an exciting adventure but it's so easy to jump / teleport / jump / teleport it becomes routine. It all means that whilst you can explore in theory endlessly because there is no jeopardy there is no sense of achievement in doing so - which is exactly what exploration should be all about. The Grind: Honestly, once the novelty wears off, it's a grindy collecting things game. Which has no idea what it wants to be. Stung no doubt by the criticism of the lack of content on launch, they've proceeded to shove in every sci fi trope they can think of. But it just doesn't hang together. The main story of the game, with all its dark premonitions, even the character of the races, with the slightly threatening Vykeen or the very logical captain Korvax has the immersion broken completely when the NPCs emote cheerily at you just after threatening to rip your throat out. I see what it tries to be. It looks at titles like GTA or The Witcher and thinks hell a Pokemon min-game or a fishing challenge are just the ticket. But they are jarring in this context. And besides, what both those games had in the first place was an actual game. So it's highly forgiving, and I get it, not everyone wants to be punished in a game. Maybe this disconnect is just a product of how I like to play games. I love Kenshi, and Rimworld, and Dwarf Fortress, and Star Sector, to name a few. None of those games hold your hand. But in a game about exploration should make the exploration bit a rewarding challenge, not routine. And a lot of this is a product of procedurally generated play. There's no real room for variation, which is the ultimate irony. Because it's procedurally generated there is no need to go anywhere either - literally no need to go more than one jump from your home system, in order to see the whole game. I see why the stations are all identical, so people can find things, but you have teleports, can't you have an explorable randomised station with teleports to get to crucial areas at the entrance? Every freighter, no matter what the freighter, is laid out identically. What I'd love to see (at least as an option): - If you teleport somewhere, you don't take your ship with you, and you can't instantly call your ship/freighter/whatever from another dimension whenever you want to. If you want to go to a different system, you have to actually GO there. No more calling ships or freighters over improbable distances. - Sparser stations. There shouldn't be a station in every system, and they shouldn't all have the same services. Also they shouldn't all be identical. It just doesn't feel like you're travelling anywhere at the moment. - Sensible population distribution. The nearer you get to the centre of the galaxy or whatever, the more stations there are. Vykeen/Gek/Korvax zones of influence. Potential border disputes. I get it's all procedurally generated, but it must be tweakable. This would all help immersion no end. There should NOT be an identical districution of the same races 200k light years away. It's just nonsensical. - More races. Where are all the humans? where are all the races you see travellers being? Where are they? - Actually, where do all these Gek/Vykeen/Korvax live? Do they have home systems, cities, whatever? I suppose they all live at my settlements. There you go. - tougher planet distribution. It should be HARD to find habitable worlds. But they are everywhere in this game. Again I get that people love finding the 3 legged tube creature from hell, but imagine how much more it would mean if you needed to travel through 10 systems to find it. - Gas giants... WTF? I know you wanted to do the pretty cloud bands, but seriously, read a science book, guys. Or read 'The Algabraist'. I was expecting a whole new game mechanic involving clouds or whatever, it could have given corvettes something else to do, but instead it's just another planet which is a waste really. Chin Stroking: I think part of the reason I'm writing the review is because I did put so many hours into this, to discover there is nothing at the end of it. You think at some point you'll find something, but you never do. You hope you'll round a corner where you find something new and amazing but it is never there. The point is, I've wasted a lot of time on it. Honestly, when I think about it I've spent more time on games I've given negative reviews to than I have on some of my favourites. I think I am an optimist. Don't get me wrong, the game is very good at killing hours and hours. But then most games are. Maybe I should just get out more instead. I haven't even seen all the real world has to offer yet.
