Written by Jonathan Lee, August 25, 2016, 3:00 p.m. Tweet to: @Writerscube

No Man’s Sky has gone from a game of stratosphere-busting anticipation to a ball of angry fire ants just waiting to explode—and it’s because there was no way for the game to live up to the hype. I was going to give my final thoughts on this title by Hello Games sooner this week, but I held back because I hadn’t had the chance to just sit down, plug in, and play without thinking of writing this article, or thinking of what anyone else thought about this game. I finally had that chance.

No Man’s Sky Is Still Great

I still love this game. It’s getting better. Recently, No Man’s Sky just got patched. No, that patch didn’t fix everything. It made things a little better, but I’m still getting spontaneously launched into space from the ground without so much as a slight tilt of my joystick and a press of the launch button.  And the crashes… still… happen.

But! This game is beautiful in its great, ridiculously huge way. I really don’t think there is a main point to this game. Or rather, it’s what you make of it. I noticed a lot of people wanted to get the Galactic Core. Heck, I wanted to as well!

Then when I found a space anomaly that turned out to be a space station, I was given the coordinates to a Black Hole that would frikin’ take me to the bloody Core! So I sped on my way to the Black Hole. I wanted to get the Core. That was the whole point of this journal, right? The goal. The finish line. The end game! I was about to frikin’ get there!

Screw The Galactic Core, I Love This Game Too Much

I turned my back on it. Everyone and their mothers had reached the Core. It seemed the most obvious goal. But in such a huge place, there had to be more! In fact, there WAS much more. It was just not as clear until you really pursue it.

And I found it. Partially in the story bits that I was uncovering through the monoliths and Atlas Constructs. But I found more from how this lonely world was provoking my imagination to build on what it was leaving out.

We live in a world where we expect almost everything to get handed to us, these days. We expect the stories to be so comprehensive and the narrative so guided that we get frustrated when we have to work for it.

I get it! In No Man’s Sky we REALLY have to work for it, but no one discovered the tablets of Gilgamesh overnight. And that sense of discovery, that sense of satisfaction for every tidbit of story you get. Just from the Atlas Constructs alone, I’d been slowly getting details of a backdrop that was almost Lovecraftian in nature. It’s good, terrifying stuff! I would never have gotten this far into the “story” if I had just gone to the Core.

Maybe I’m just a sucker for stories. I’m so damn happy I turned my back on that Black Hole. The Galactic Core can wait.

Final Thoughts

I’d have to say No Man’s Sky is still a special game: It really becomes as great as you make it. It has its bugs. The game crashes at the worst times. But for a studio of its size, I have to give Hello Games mad props for pulling off what they did, and for the writers who created the backdrop behind the No Man’s Sky Universe. I still haven’t uncovered all there is to know, and that’s okay. That’s actually why I’m loving this game. I want to keep learning more of the history behind this expansive world I’m flying around in.

Hello Games is making an effort to also patch the game up. That was evident in their first patch, which had improved game performance slightly. Some of the crashes still need fixing. But I’m sure Hello Games will not give up.

All in all, this is a diamond in the rough, but I’m going to keep chipping away at it for some time until I get that diamond out of it. Sure it gets boring, but what survival game doesn’t at some point? Harvesting materials is always a chore–but you just keep running into those tid bits of exciting information, history, and equipment that keeps you going. This wasn’t meant to be a AAA title. But from a team the size of Hello Games, this labor of love is a good addition to their portfolio, and a good example of when to love a game for what it is.