After numerous update including a new Cross Play feature, NMS has vastly improved.

Why You Should Play: No Man’s Sky – Game Review

NOTE: There’s currently a game breaking bug for AMD GPU’s for NMS, as such we do not have any footage to tie in right now.

Somewhat of a controversial game, No Man’s Sky came out a couple years back in 2016, and it was a huge letdown for most people. Pretty much every single element that was originally promised by Hello Games was not present in the final release.

Still charging the normal $60, most consumers felt very cheated by the practices, swearing off Hello Games forever. Shame that they did though, while we’re not here to defend the actions that took place at the beginning, now is what matters. Now, No Man’s Sky is freaking incredible, and well worth the investment.

To Infinity And Beyond

One of the biggest selling points of No Man’s Sky from beginning to today was the vast open universe that players could explore at their leisure. Just flying through space at the speed of light, staring at the various star systems, planets, galaxies etc. It’s a mesmerizing and exhilarating experience that very few games can boast of.

When we say that the game is vast, we mean extraordinarily vast. If you’re playing on survival, you pretty much guarantee that it will take you days to just get off of your spawn planet to start exploring. There is a lot to find, a lot to explore, a lot of things to meet, and the whole of space to see.

What we love most about the exploration in No Man’s Sky is just how free it feels. The game doesn’t try to shackle you with mandated quests and linear progression. When you first launch your craft, you are completely free to do what you wish. You can drift in space and just chill out, you can become a pirate and rob passing freighters etc.

We love the exploration in No Man’s Sky, it is by far one of our favorite aspects of the game.

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Bring a Friend To Space Day

You might also be aware that No Man’s Sky got a lot of flak for not including multiplayer in the original release. Despite the fact that it was a widely talked about feature, exploring and crafting with friends was a big selling point.

Eventually players realized that without dedicated joining systems or ways to communicate with people, meant that it could take players literal years to meet each other. Luckily, that is a thing of the past now. 

You can spawn on a friend’s planet/base. You can spawn wherever you want and go join them yourself. Or, you can do none of those things, and just find random people exploring the universe and make friends that way.

All of this sounds great and all, but as of this last week, it got a lot better. See, Hello Games just added crossplay to the game. Friend on Xbox but you’re on PC? No problem, just add their friend code and away you go. 

Star Wars

Of course, maybe being a pacifist and just exploring the universe isn’t exactly what you had in mind. Perhaps you really wanted to become a space pirate, attacking at random and stealing cargo from unsuspecting targets. Making the galaxy your virtual playground for mayhem, consternation and wanton violence.

Luck is with you friend. Whether you want to royally annoy other factions and start fleet battles, rob other players or bombard planets. IF you want to be the space commander or pirate, you have that option.

Granted, becoming a commander of a fleet, or becoming a successful pirate is not as easy as it sounds. There’s a lot of work involved in making a good ship, even more work involved in making that ship work in combat. You have to earn your stripes in this game, but when you do, it feels really good!

In Summary/Final thoughts

It can be hard to overlook the initial launch travesty that was No Man’s Sky. Hello Games dropped the ball pretty hard and failed to capitalize on a solid concept that they promised to millions of gamers around the world. 

That being said, they have more than made up for it recently with constant updates, free content and massive expansions to the world and gameplay. Combat has been fine tuned, enemies are more abundant, multiplayer is easy and cross play opens up the universe to even more possibilities. 

Ultimately, you just have to decide if you forgive Hello Games for the problems that they faced in the beginning. We understand if you don’t, but you are missing out on one of the better space games this generation. Considering that the competition to that claim is EVE, Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous, that’s saying quite a lot.

 

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