No man’s sky is an interesting case of too-high expectations and disappointing results. The developers promised us way more than they could deliver, leaving the people who purchased the game before or on launch day – disappointed. But No man’s sky is a different game now, than it was back then. How? Well, let’s see.
Launch mysteries
No man’s sky launch was filled with disasters. The promised 18 quintillion planets and almost endless scales of the universe (or promises of one) were shattered when on one of the first days a few streamers bet completely by accident… Lag and performance issues were also a problem and No man’s sky seemed to be the biggest fail of the year. There were, however, a lot of players in the game and they stuck by. Launch day issues were quickly resolved and the game became playable and even slightly fun. Of course, after a few hours it started to get monotonous, but more on that later. Developers didn’t seem fond of answering questions, related to the things that they promised to put in the game, but didn’t. Weird…
Current state and the build-up
Thousands of fans went to Youtube, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook to express their dissatisfaction with the final product they received. Since this game was so hyped, players expected it to be the game that takes it to the next level, but it didn’t. There have been a lot of updates to the game, and we’re now sitting at patch 1.3.5 with Updated graphics, textures, expanded story and a lot of cool new features. But enough talk about the specs, let’s talk about the game.
Gameplay
The game is a mix of four genres: survival, adventure, shooting and RPG/exploration. These genres blend in well and No man’s sky is an experience unlike any other. Of course, there are plenty of drawbacks: the survival element is weak and staying alive is so easy, talking about it is not needed (elements and materials needed for survival are plenty). Shooting is monotonous and boring, RPG elements are also very shallow, but the exploration and adventure parts are the true stars. There are so many planets, that the developers themselves, can’t list and number all of them. Once you find a planet, you are awarded the title of finder, of course, pretty much no one is going to see your victory and achievement, but it’s still a nice touch to have in the game. The adventure part could be more in-depth, to most people the story felt shallow, even though developers did their best and added ~30 hours of story gameplay through updates, but it’s still not worthy of the title “a good story”. No man’s sky gameplay is also littered with monotony, routine and very repetitive actions. Most of the planets you land on are very far away from one another, but their terrains and creatures start to repeat after some time. Fighting enemy aliens is ridiculous. They’re so easy to beat, that you can simply just run and shoot, no thinking or challenge are allowed to take place. To add to that, there aren’t many guns to choose from, the upgrade tree ends pretty soon and the flying scenes… Don’t even start. Although we pointed out the negatives, there are also some positive features of No man’s sky. It’s extremely big and the main goal to reach a point (the center of the galaxy, actually) in the universe is worth striving for and could take you a few hundred (if not more) hours. It’s surprisingly feels so close, yet so far away, but it kept me going at this game for a long, long time. Sadly, every run was filled with disappointments that really held me back from enjoying No man’s sky.
Score: 5.4/10
