Well, the day finally came! No Man’s Sky was officially released on PS4 this past Tuesday, and to say I was excited would be the understatement of the century. I first heard about this game’s general concept about three years ago, and since then my imagination has run wild with hopes and dreams of what it would be like. I tried to avoid spoilers from the likes of reddit and twitter, and for the most part I succeeded. I did watch a lot of interviews that lead developer Sean Murray gave over the past year, and even succumbed to watching videos on YouTube analyzing the clips of gameplay we had been shown. But no matter how much or how little we watched or read about it, the real test would always be playing it for ourselves.

There were many naysayers and many more, like me, that absolutely couldn’t wait to play. I’d like this article to not be considered a full review, as I don’t believe that after 20 hours I can fully gauge my opinions on such a massive game. But I hope that this will be helpful to those still considering the purchase, like our own Judge Greg, as well as others. This first impression post will be about what I like, what I hate, and what I love. So let’s get into it!

Tuesday morning just before 10:00 AM I was in the parking lot of my local EB Games (Gamestop of Canada).  The second the doors opened, me and three other excited gamers hopped out of our cars and rushed inside. The girl behind the counter almost didn’t bother to ask, “No Man’s Sky…?” It was more of a statement than a question. We were all there for the same reason, and we all knew it. It was all quite fun and hilarious, really. I raced back home (I didn’t speed, mind you, not at all) and plopped the disc in. I rushed out of the room to get into my jammies, because that’s the kind of girl I am, and a few minutes later I was downstairs. The update had already finished, and I saw a prompt to “initialize” on-screen. I did so, and stared in wonder as my starter planet came into view. It was dark, smokey, with touches of bright red crystals, royal blue plants, and yellow flowers. What was obviously my very first ship sat next to me, smoking from apparent damage it had taken. I was then instructed to begin the task of repairing my ship. It was a great way to introduce this system, as you will come across many other crashed ships that you can take for free and repair them as you go along.

This is perhaps the only thing No Man’s Sky is good at teaching you. Now before I explain, I’d like to say that I actually love when games don’t hold your hand. I like being able to learn some stuff as I go and sharing discoveries with my friends. Having said that, there is a limit to what I think they can leave up to players to figure out, such as basic controls. Early on, you are told how to use the pulse engine to boost your flight speed in between planets within systems. (Not to be confused with hyperdrive, as that is what lets you warp from one system to another.) It’s basically necessary unless you want to spend thirty minutes (real time, mind you) just flying along from one planet to another. Yes, I’m serious, they are that far away. Using this boost cuts twenty minutes down to about a minute and a half, give or take. The problem is, they never prompt you on how to STOP it. This led to a couple of frustrating and hilarious moments of me not aiming properly at the planet in the first place, not knowing now to stop it, and literally shooting PAST the planet I wanted to land on… I didn’t stop until my pulse engine ran out of charge. It took a few times of trial and error, but finally I figured out that I can stop it with the left trigger. Also, and this was my own error, if you aim directly at a planet and use this boost, once you enter the atmosphere you will slow down and coast slowly along the surface of the planet. Simple as that. Perhaps a more apt gamer than me found this an obvious control choice, left trigger to slow, but I was dumbfounded. Every time you’re flying in your ship, it constantly reminds you how to activate your pulse engine, but it never tells you how to stop it. There are other examples of bizarre choices such at this, but it’s the one that probably bothered me the most.

Aside from a few missing directions for controls, my other gripe is that they decided to use a “charge” system for virtually all of your tools and shields. They call it charging, but ultimately what this means is you have to add gas to everything. Everything. But at least they came up with some ways to lessen this annoyance. Your suit’s life support system must be refueled with one of the more basic resources. It’s never difficult to find, but can grow tiresome. I was thrilled when I found an upgrade that doubled my life support bar, so I can fill it up half as often. Your suit is also equipped with environmental protection that needs to be refueled very often, unless you have the necessary upgrade to protect yourself against heat, cold, radiation, or toxin. Now this bar will regenerate back on its own, if you take shelter in your ship, caves, or one of the many outposts you come across. This is a big help, especially when a storm comes raging in and your elemental bar starts shooting down at an alarming rate. The fact that you need to keep fueling your ship’s shields, pulse engine, launch boosters, cannons, and beams, however, can all be a bit much. Not to mention refueling your multi-tool’s mining beam and gun. Quite a bit of your inventory is going to be full with the necessary resources simply to keep everything going. If you’re smart you will pay attention to the ones that do double-duty and stay stocked up on those, like Plutonium.

I have to say that after my 20-odd hours of playing No Man’s Sky since its release, I have had my ups and downs. I have had moments where I was filled with this childhood astonishment, moments where I was thrilled with my new discoveries, and moments where I was so bored I wanted to quit. After years of having my hopes through the roof, you can imagine how hard that latter pill was to swallow. But I was recently having a conversation with a friend who also bought it on release day, and I was struck with how much he seemed to be enjoying it. I’m not too proud to admit that I was extremely jealous. I was the one dying for this game and here I was bored and annoyed and he was having a blast. I knew what kind of game I was getting into, and while nothing was disappointing me, I just felt like I didn’t have a reason for doing anything. I’m the kind of gamer that loves the crafting/survival of The Long Dark and Subnautica. Yet I wasn’t approaching this game the way I had planned, with that mindset of exploration and survival being my reason. I was rushing along system to system, warping as fast as I could, and barely touching down on each planet I passed. I began to treat it all like some chore, and expecting to have fun.

My friend gave me some fantastic advice that he had read in an article on Kotaku: slow down. Take your time. Enjoy each planet and walk around more. Soak in the sights. This morning I woke up feeling a little excited to play again. I started it back up after my morning coffee, and I settled into a planet. I was there for about 5 hours today, and man, did I have fun.

I am not saying it will take you over 20 hours to get into this game. What I am saying is that there may be a learning curve even for those of us that have been fully expecting a slower-paced, exploration game. That even the biggest champions for No Man’s Sky may come at it the wrong way, and completely forget the point of this game. It’s not to rush full speed ahead to the center of the universe like some race. It’s to explore. Ladies and gentlemen, I implore you, don’t rush this game. Land your ship, get out, and walk around. Use your jetpack to reach the highest peaks and look around at the beautiful, procedurally-generated planet and take in the sights. Use your scanner like binoculars and scan the horizon for outposts through which to loot, flora to mine and fauna to scan. Don’t be afraid to leave your ship behind you. Outposts have save points, and they are plentiful. Don’t make the mistake I made and think, “That is 20 minutes away on foot! I’m flying!” Ignore that counter and just go. You will discover many great things along the way.

While this is just my “early-ish impressions” article, and I plan on writing a more thorough review after at least a few more weeks, I have to say that once I approached this game the way I should have all along, I began to have the blast that I was hoping for. No, this game won’t be for everyone, but if you’re like me and were thrilled at the idea of a massive universe to just explore, you will love No Man’s Sky.

xoxo,
Dark Princess