Hello, I’m eyeing No Man’s Sky for past 10 years and haven’t decided it’s a game for me yet. On paper it’s my childhood dream come true - deep space, commanding ships, discovering planets, seeing alien life forms, basically everything I dreamt about as a kid reading Clarke and Asimov…

I’m not a kid anymore, but the itch is still there to some degree. Nowadays I do enjoy slower paced RPGs, interesting story and distinctive art and music style. Thinking games like old KOTORs, Morrowind, Gothic, or Pillars of Eternity, Disco Elysium or Pentiment from newer ones. I did enjoy some hours in Valheim too, but more like exploring and not so much building and micro managing the base. And I play slow. Really slow. I tend to discover all the corners of the map before moving on, just to “check” if there’s something of interest (old Gothic was amazing for this).

Is No Man’s Sky worth its asking price for me? Or will it crush me with never ending space, billions of quests and tedious base building? Does it have “main story line” or something like that?

  • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
    2·
    4 hours ago

    In my opinion, no, it isn’t worth the price (and not the time investment either, even if price isn’t an issue). The core loop just isn’t fun for me. I too kike the concept. It’s close to what I’d Invision for a perfect space game. However, the biggest issues are the exploration feels pointless, because planets aren’t actually special (even the rare types). You will find many similar versions of any planet if you just spend time exploring, so there no real potential to miss discoveries, which also means to discovery is meaningful or unique.

    Another issue is the total lack of friction. You can’t crash while flying, and it removes your control. Also death is pretty meaningless, and combat is easy enough where that isn’t even a concern unless you try to die.

    Finally, there’s not much of a narrative. I noticed you essentially listed stories, or story focused games. NMS is not that. There is a narrative, but it isn’t really the reason to play. I’m willing to bet you’d have the same issues with it that I would.