No Man’s Sky ! The Game ?

 

    Its been a while since every year , emerging games have become a frenzy and more and more games – be it for PC or PS4 or xbox – have been surfacing in the gaming world but until now , almost all the games have been missing one thing – Passion . One such game which has brought hope and uniqueness , which has provided a sense of freedom so great that it is impossible to judge its limits , whose mysteries need thousands of years to unravel , which has the potential to revolutionise decades of Gaming , is , “No Man’s Sky“.

Scale of the game  :-

The unique thing about this game is its scale . It is so unbelievably huge that ,to explore everything in it ,you need to have a life span of at least thousands of years and i am not kidding . It has trillions of stars and billions of solar systems and quintillions of planets . Each planet is of ‘real planet size’ . You could walk days and days on a planet and after some months you will get to the same point . If you feel bored in that planet , just hop inside your spaceship and you can boom out of the planet with terrific speeds . Each solar system can have any number of planets and many of them are not life sustaining . After strolling some planets , if you are up for it , a whole map of the thousands of star systems awaits for you in the galactic map , a map of all the stars that you can visit in this TINY game . (lol) . The developer “sean murray” says that it is totally improbable that any player visits the planet visited by another player because its soo huge a game. But the wonderful part is that all the planets are different and everything is , like our universe, unique in its aspect.  You might probably wonder how much memory space this huge game needs . Dont worry its probably some 10 to 20 Giga bytes.

How Does It Work ?

(Warning – MATH AHEAD)

No man’s sky works by a method called “procedural generation” where in all the things that you see that is the game’s visual , is generated using hundreds of mathematical equations . I bet it is hell lot difficult than it sounds . The game at its base , is a complexity and result of all these equations and their coordination . It takes your position in the game as input and takes those numbers , inserts it in math and the output is what you see on your screen as the game . This implies that the game need not be stored in your harddisk and is just created around you when you are playing it . So not much memory space is needed since everything outside your field of view is deleted in the hard disk then and there .

Multitool And Hud :-

For those FPS gamers out there , Yes it does have lots of shooting if you want. It has a multi tool which can be equipped with ground digger , guns , lasers and bombs and more. The hud is quite simple with a health bar of the shield that your space suit has. It has a wanted level system just like in GTAs , so that you cant make too much trouble. Like police in GTA , this game has some kind of hovering robotic things called ‘sentinels’ and these dont like you if you kind of go haywire shooting all the animals and aliens of that planet. It kind of shoots at you first as a warning then if resisted , brings a whole lot of its friends based on the wanted level. But fear not , all the planets dont have this kind of policing. Only some of the planets have those sentinels lurking around. Why ? its not yet clear. It seems that it is part of the game’s lore. We just have to wait for the game to know more about it.

The Journey :- 

No man’s sky is a game whose goal is simple as hell – Just get to the center of the galaxy !  seems simple isn’t it . Well … not quite . To get to the center, you have to travel a lot and lot means may be more than a 100 hours (may be more) . So whats at the center ? Honestly , i don’t know . We will have to get to the center to know it but i am quite sure that there won’t be a “trump” at the center. To go from one start system to another you need some hyperdrive fuel warp the space which you can get from shooting asteroids and by mining .So you need to hop from one system to a nearby system and thus the gameplay proceeds. No mans sky is not just a game having a goal or not just exploration , No mans sky is about the journey to the center and all the things and adventures that you have experienced while getting there. This journey is unique to every player because of its vastness ,so there’s no need to worry about spoilers in the internet . All the players start in a different planet which might be rocky,desert , acidic, toxic , rich with life , or full of water and … the possibility are huge . The first thing you do is to upgrade your spaceship and your suit . Your spacesuit helps you to enter toxic planets and very cold and hot planets , so you have to upgrade to get better suit and better sustainability . You also have a jet pack so that you can fly anywhere in a planet. You will spend a lot time in your ship and so you will need to upgrade its armour , guns and stuffs . To upgrade these you need resources. These resources can be obtained by mining the surface of planets or in some asteroids by shooting them from your ship . Like money ,the game has something called “units” which is the currency for everything in the game that you need to buy be it ships and suit or resources. Due to these things your journey to the center will probably take a looong time becoz one cant resist these distractions and cant ignore the mysteries and the urge to explore the unknown.

Aliens and Factions :-

One thing that needs to be included in a space sci-fi game is without a fuss ,is Aliens. This game has a lot of them . Out of the planets in the game ,10 percent will sustain life and out of them only some will be very rich with life. Each life sustaining planet has a different kind of animals with their own kind of features and thier corresponding manner of behaviour . The aliens include different factions and races that we come across in the game and one such alien race called “korvax” is one of them .Imagine, you are moving on a huge rocky hill but soon realize that it was a Godzilla sized animal. These kind of sky scraper sized animals exist in the game. Some planets have alien factories which is a good place to loot resources . These factories kind of have alien scientists who talk in thier own languages and as time passes you can also understand it. These planets have large scriptures or monoliths which help you to learn their language and give you abilities and heal you. You can also sleep beside them if tired. From the alien words that you learnt from the monolith , you can understand things that they are saying and can get them some resources in return for thier trust to earn resources. You can also hack their systems and can loot thier resources but that means more wanted level and more trouble . But you can play it however you want .In space , sometimes there will be battles between the alien factions and you can help them to earn their help but enmity of the other enemy faction. These kind of alliances affect the future gameplay.

Planets and Multiplayer :-

No man’s sky has one of the most beautiful concept arts in gaming. Though procedural generation has been tried before , none were this much successful. The game is not just big but eye catchingly beautiful. Be it large terrains of rock , or a planet where in rain doesnt seem to stop or a planet rich with rainbow colored leaves and trees or a desert one or acid filled . You name it . The possibilities are endless , and so is the gameplay.Every planet rotates on its axis and has a day and night cycle with the corresponding changing weather. In space , every system has a “space station” where you can trade resources with aliens and buy space ships. Though the core of the game is to get to the center of the galaxy , one need not do the same. Coming to multiplayer ,there’s not any co-op gameplay but the game developer has said that players can be able to meet each other if there are near but it is very very rare. (like justin bieber becoming US president rare).There is a possibility that the sean will include Co-op but its unlikely that it will happen soon. One more mystery thing is , we dont yet know how the player looks like , even if its a man or a woman . To figure it out , one has to meet another player which is very unlikely and that’s what makes this game insanely thrilling . Here are some of the screenshots of it . Beautiful isn’t it ?

Final Words about No Man’s Sky  :-

All in all, No man’s sky is a sci-fi game of exploration involving mining resources to upgrade your suit and spaceship and its core gameplay is about your journey to the center of the galaxy. You can be a pirate , scientist ,explorer and pretty much everything you want. It is a beautifully crafted game with slight embedded story and a whole universe whose mysteries await for you to unravel them. This game was gonna release in june 21st but unfortunately postponed to “August 9 th ” . Anyway , though the fans are unhappy about it , I hope that the developers are polishing the game and adding new features to it. Nonetheless its already damn good .