Game:

No Man's Sky (2016)

Category:

Guide

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No Man's Sky is an action-adventure survival game played from a first or third person perspective that allows players to engage in four principal activities: exploration, survival, combat, and trading.[1] The player takes the role of a specimen of alien humanoid planetary explorer, known in-game as the Traveller, in an uncharted universe. They start on a random planet near a crashed spacecraft at the edge of the galaxy, and are equipped with a survival exosuit with a jetpack, and a "multitool" that can be used to scan, mine and collect resources as well as to attack or defend oneself from creatures and hostile forces. The player can collect, repair, and refuel the craft, allowing them to travel about the planet, between other planets and space stations in the local planetary system, engage in space combat with alien factions, or make hyperspace jumps to other star systems.[2] While the game is open ended, the player may follow the guidance of the entity known as the Atlas to head towards the centre of the galaxy.[3]

The defining feature of No Man's Sky is that nearly all parts of the galaxy, including stars, planets, flora and fauna on these planets, and sentient alien encounters, are created through procedural generation using deterministic algorithms and random number generators from a single seed number. This 64-bit value leads to there being over 18 quintillion[b] (1.8×1019) planets to explore within the game.[4] Very little data is stored on the game's servers, as all elements of the game are created through deterministic calculations when the player is near them, assuring that other players will see the same elements as another player by travelling to the same location in the galaxy. The player may make temporary changes on planets, such as mining resources, but these changes are not tracked once the player leaves that vicinity. Only some "significant" changes, such as destroying a space station, are tracked for all players on the game's servers.[5][6] The game uses different servers for the PlayStation 4 and Windows versions.[7]

Through exploration, the player is credited with "units", the in-game currency, by observing not-yet-seen planets, alien bases, flora and fauna in their travels.[8][9] If the player is first to discover one of these, they can earn additional units by uploading this information to the Atlas, as well as having their name credited with the discovery to be seen by other players through the game's servers. Players also have the opportunity to rename these features at this point within limits set by a content filter.[10][11] No Man's Sky can be played offline, but interaction with the Atlas requires online connectivity.[3][5]

The player must assure the survival of the Traveller, as many planets have dangerous atmospheres such as extreme temperatures, toxic gases, and dangerous storms.[10] Though the player can seek shelter at alien bases or caves, these environments will wear away at the exosuit's shielding and armour and can kill the Traveller, thus the player must collect resources necessary for survival. By collecting blueprints, the player can use resources to craft upgrades to their exosuit, multitool, and spacecraft to make survival easier, with several of these upgrades working in synergistic manners to improve the survivability and capabilities of the Traveller.[2] Each of these elements have a limited number of slots for both upgrades and resource space, requiring the player to manage their inventories and feature sets, though the player can either gain new slots for the exosuit or purchase new ships and multitools with more slots.[12] Many features of the exosuit, multitool, and spacecraft need to be refuelled after prolonged use, using collected resources as a fuel source. Better equipment, and the blueprints and resources to craft that equipment, are generally located closer to the centre of the galaxy, providing a driver for the player.[13][14]

While on a planet, the Traveller may be attacked by hostile creatures. They also may be attacked by Sentinels, a self-replicating robot force that patrols the planets and takes action against those that take the planet's resources. The player can fend these off using the weapons installed on the multitool. The game uses a "wanted level" similar to that of the Grand Theft Auto series; low wanted levels may cause small drones to appear which may be easily fought off, while giant walking machines can assault the player at higher wanted levels.[2]




Post-release updates
Major update release timeline
2016 1.00: Initial release (PC, PS4)
1.10: "Foundation Update"
2017 1.20: "Path Finder Update"
1.30: "Atlas Rises"
2018 1.50: "No Man's Sky Next" (XBO)
1.70: "The Abyss"
1.75: "Visions"
2019 2.00: "Beyond" (VR)
2.20: "Synthesis"
2.24: "Bytebeat"
2020 2.30: "Living Ship"
2.40: "Exo Mech"
2.50: "Crossplay"
2.60: "Desolation"
3.00: "Origins"

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