No Man's Sky - a procedurally generated sand box space exploration game

I saw this game during Sony's conference and I'm impressed. I like the concept.
 
E3 trailers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hM8RdLNGPI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0APP5WcX8v8

Word on the street is that this is going to be a timed exclusive for the PS4 first, which is kinda annoying considering that this type of game is firmly rooted in the nostalgia of PC space sims. I don't think its an exaggeration to say that pretty much every space sim fan has been dreaming of a game that can do real time space to atmospheric transitions and vice versa.
 
I've learned not to believe E3 trailers. With that stated, it does look pretty fantastic, and if it pulls off what the trailers show, then it could be a huge hit. My concern is that exploring and arcade-style PvE combat could get boring.

...Why do I have a sudden urge to play Startopia?
 
I need to see what the ultimate gameplay goal of this is going to be. But damn, if that trailer during the Sony presser wasn't impressive.

I am always skeptical about trailers like this. But I'll tell you what: if the final game actually does pull off the seamless transition between planet surface and outer space like we saw in the trailer, mind frakking blown. This is procedural generation done right.

It looks like it's going to be a small indie developer to finally give us a title that can truly be called "next-gen."
 
Pezzy said:
I've learned not to believe E3 trailers.
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Well consider that this is an Indie developer, and the game as demonstrated is basically WYSIWYG. They didn't add the kinds of prerendered effects smoke&mirrors that the big budget AAA studios will sometimes cheat with to spruce up a trailer.
 
Can they really be considered "indie" developers if they get their own presentation and stage time at E3? And I'm the only one the cringes a bit when you hear indie?
 
King Icewind said:
Can they really be considered "indie" developers if they get their own presentation and stage time at E3? And I'm the only one the cringes a bit when you hear indie?
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They gave the Bastion developers a presentation at E3 2013 but that wasn't considered anything in terms of "special" treatment was it?

I think having a prime time slot in the presentation is a testament to the amount of interest in the game. No Man's Sky is just utterly fluid in its presentation and it looks wonderful. If they can pull it off then they deserve that prime time slot. Transistor is an amazing game and Sony was VERY smart to showcase it at E3 2013. It made an immediate connection to anyone that enjoyed Bastion and showed Sony's commitment to indie developers. Meanwhile Microsoft in 2013 was basically considering imposing absurd requirements to get indie games on its platform.

Giving all that time to No Man's Sky was perfect. Because outside of it and BloodBorn there wasn't much to get super excited about at Sony's press event thanks to the new CEO Killjoy boring everyone to sleep with his sales numbers and TV bullshit no one cares about.
 
King Icewind said:
Can they really be considered "indie" developers if they get their own presentation and stage time at E3? And I'm the only one the cringes a bit when you hear indie?
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Not sure what one has to do with the other. Its a very small team that hit the lottery with a great proof of concept that caught Sony's eye. Its rare but it happens.
 
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Blade-Runner said:
Word on the street is that this is going to be a timed exclusive for the PS4 first, which is kinda annoying considering that this type of game is firmly rooted in the nostalgia of PC space sims. I don't think its an exaggeration to say that pretty much every space sim fan has been dreaming of a game that can do real time space to atmospheric transitions and vice versa.
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If so, and this turns out to be 75% as good as it looks, I will pick up a PS4 to play it.
 
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King Icewind said:
Can they really be considered "indie" developers if they get their own presentation and stage time at E3? And I'm the only one the cringes a bit when you hear indie?
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CiG is considered Indie or should be because they are independent from a major publisher, even tho they have 46m in funding heh.

but i think aslong as a large publisher isnt footing the bill on all the development costs then they should be considered indie regardless of size.

giving someone a spot at E3 is good for them but if sony actually pays for dev costs ect that is where the problem calling them indie would be
 
I thought this was a pc game? I guess sony picked it up after they saw how amazing it was
 
Huge potential for both this and Star Citizen. I'm stoked for both games.
 
This one seems to capture (from the little I've seen) the feeling I get when playing things like Star Control 2, Starflight or Mass Effect. (anything where you can explore, discover new things, mysterious things that actually make you wonder how they got there, etc.) This is probably the first game that I've been truly excited about in some time. I mean, I've wanted some games, am kind of excited for a few, cautiously excited for some others, but this one... I want it...
 
Q-BZ said:
Huge potential for both this and Star Citizen. I'm stoked for both games.
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Star Citizen looks insanely cool too, but what I keep wondering is if it's going to require major upkeep as far as maintaining everything, making sure you're in the game all the time, etc. Or if you can safely play it on and off. As incredible as it looks, I don't have the kind of time that I used to in order to keep up.

No Man's Sky looks like it could be a little easier in this department. (at least from the little I've seen)
 
No Mans Sky, Elite: Dangerous and Star Citizen, this is good time for space combat games. Although I am fine if they release this first on the PS4 (I am sure Sony are giving them mucho dollars to do that), this game is going to be played by me on the PC, and PC only. As long as they don't pull a monkey brained Destiny and put it on console-only, I see great things for No Mans Sky.
 
bigdogchris said:
Pretty sure I was thinking of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrcEUO7TC28

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCzDKj3hjOE

https://inovaestudios.com/
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Yea that's what I was thinking of when I saw this E3 trailer as well. The infinity engine demo you linked gives a much much better feel of the huge scope space. In No Man's Sky you go from surface to orbit in like less than 10 seconds? It is still nice to be able to seamlessly do that but man the sense of scale seems really off. I looked like that planet was like 50 miles diameter or something.
I'll likely still buy this but that might ruin my immersion a bit.
 
banned_user said:
Yea that's what I was thinking of when I saw this E3 trailer as well. The infinity engine demo you linked gives a much much better feel of the huge scope space. In No Man's Sky you go from surface to orbit in like less than 10 seconds? It is still nice to be able to seamlessly do that but man the sense of scale seems really off. I looked like that planet was like 50 miles diameter or something.
I'll likely still buy this but that might ruin my immersion a bit.
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If you watch the demo carefully, it almost looks as if, once a certain altitude is reached it fast warps you forward by a lot, even the scene when the ship is re-entering the atmosphere it does the same thing.
 
I'm really disappointed that this is a timed exclusive...as others have said, this belongs on the PC. :(
 
Will no man sky have multiplayer dog fights like start citizen? I've never really played space flight games such as these but they seem pretty cool. I'm hoping the new battlefront game from dice has surface to orbit space flight, how awesome!

Well lets hope start citizen is alot better if this ends up a total exclusive to ps4
 
I'm fine with it being on the PS4. I'd use a controller either way. This doesn't look too graphically intense either, so I'd bet they will look pretty close to each other. Only discrepancy might be FPS. Will be able play with more of my friends too.
 
Pivo504 said:
Will no man sky have multiplayer dog fights like start citizen? I've never really played space flight games such as these but they seem pretty cool. I'm hoping the new battlefront game from dice has surface to orbit space flight, how awesome!

Well lets hope start citizen is alot better if this ends up a total exclusive to ps4
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This is not a dogfight game whatsoever. It is basically a 3D version of Starbound. By that I mean, its an exploration game.
 
They mention space combat as well as first person combat on the planet surfaces. Probably still primarily exploration, but they do mention combat somewhere on their site or in one of the videos.
 
banned_user said:
Yea that's what I was thinking of when I saw this E3 trailer as well. The infinity engine demo you linked gives a much much better feel of the huge scope space. In No Man's Sky you go from surface to orbit in like less than 10 seconds? It is still nice to be able to seamlessly do that but man the sense of scale seems really off. I looked like that planet was like 50 miles diameter or something.
I'll likely still buy this but that might ruin my immersion a bit.
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Depends really. I think certain concessions have to be made, simply because of the time frame involved in space travel on a realistic scale. It takes days just to get to our own moon for instance due to orbital physics. I want to play a game, not stare at a screen for hours. On Earth, even if a ship is capable of travelling at Mach 5 in atmosphere, it would still take many hours just to circumnavigate the planet without stopping anywhere.

FrEaKy said:
If you watch the demo carefully, it almost looks as if, once a certain altitude is reached it fast warps you forward by a lot, even the scene when the ship is re-entering the atmosphere it does the same thing.
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Could also be the case. I would be happy with some sort of time compression like other games have (X universe for instance.)
 
castun said:
Depends really. I think certain concessions have to be made, simply because of the time frame involved in space travel on a realistic scale. It takes days just to get to our own moon for instance due to orbital physics. I want to play a game, not stare at a screen for hours. On Earth, even if a ship is capable of travelling at Mach 5 in atmosphere, it would still take many hours just to circumnavigate the planet without stopping anywhere.

Could also be the case. I would be happy with some sort of time compression like other games have (X universe for instance.)
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Agreed! I like the seamless transitions from surface to air to space, however, I really don't want simulated times for this. If this was a sim then maybe. As a fun exploration and light combat game, I think I'd get bored. It's the same reason they reduced the amount of sea-travel necessary in the remake of Zelda/Wind Waker. People tended to get bored sailing across the map. (I tended to like it a bit, but it did get a bit tiresome after a while.)
 
Also look at RPGs like Skyrim. Big open ended world, and yet while the map looks huge, it only takes maybe a half an hour to traverse on horseback. Cities are unrealistically close to each other, and climate transitions are too close also. Yet it still feels HUGE when playing.
 
I wonder if they'll have multiple travel methods similar to something like Star Control 2. There was hyper space travel, which is what you used outside of a solar system, or quasi-space for when you wanted to make big jumps throughout the map. (wormhole-ish)
 
castun said:
Depends really. I think certain concessions have to be made, simply because of the time frame involved in space travel on a realistic scale. It takes days just to get to our own moon for instance due to orbital physics. I want to play a game, not stare at a screen for hours. On Earth, even if a ship is capable of travelling at Mach 5 in atmosphere, it would still take many hours just to circumnavigate the planet without stopping anywhere.



Could also be the case. I would be happy with some sort of time compression like other games have (X universe for instance.)
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I don't think its a matter of the speed the ship is traveling, The planets are just very, very small from what I can tell. Take the space to surface bit that starts at 2:11. You can see individual floating rocks that hover above the surface from space. Since you can watch features gradually increase in size on the screen, that rules out a time-jump or fast forwarding effect. You can follow an individual rock to see what it looks like up close when he is traveling along the surface. The rock I followed ended up being about the size of a football field. If that thing is visible from space then the planet is tiny. I don't think its a stretch to say that this planet is <2% the size of earth.
I also don't want to spend hours traveling through empty space either, but increase the speed rather than make planets smaller IMO. Unless of course i'm jumping to conclusions and the have much larger worlds available. I love the concept and what they have been able to do so far except that bit of it.
 
The Verge did a nice write up on No Man's Sky. A couple things I did not know about were in there like how they are handling all the planets. Here's the link.
 
King Icewind said:
The Verge did a nice write up on No Man's Sky. A couple things I did not know about were in there like how they are handling all the planets. Here's the link.
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Nice! That just makes me want it all the more. I couldn't think of something more suited to how I like to play games. This is why I liked the first Mass Effect game the best. Just dropping in on random planets and driving the Mako around on them, just to see what was there. (even if it was a totally dead planet) Same thing to a lesser degree with Star Control 2. (with that though it was more about running into new races of alien, with a touch of planet exploration) This may be the first MM game that I ever get into.
 
I'm laughing that people actually think this abomination is going to actually be anywhere near as good as people are hyping it, if it even ends up being decent at all, considering it is a console game through and through.
 
Setting aside being irritated that it's a timed exclusive, I'm still unconvinced that the game will avoid feeling generic/devoid of personality. The procedural creation of these worlds is impressive, but I'm concerned it will feel bland.
 
GearChoices said:
I'm laughing that people actually think this abomination is going to actually be anywhere near as good as people are hyping it, if it even ends up being decent at all, considering it is a console game through and through.
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I would laugh, but I actually feel sad for people like you who haven't gone anywhere near it, have no idea how good it will be, and can confidently call it an abomination.

Of course I haven't touched it either, but from what I've seen, it looks like it will be a metric fuqton of fun. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I'm excited by what I've seen, and unless they ROYALLY fuck it up, it's going to be an amazing game. I'm getting the feeling that it will be already.

As someone else mentioned, there is a risk with procedurally generated games/worlds/universes. However, if they get all the right rules in place, (and it sounds like they're doing ok so far with it,) then it should turn out rather well. I think what will really make (or possibly break) this game, is what the players do when it's turned over to them. It would also be nice to know how much the players can add to the universe. I'd love to be able to set up a base on a remote moon somewhere for example.

This being on a console really has no bearing at all as to whether or not it's a good game. The graphics are beautiful, and are rendered in a way that likely won't require ridiculous hardware to run anyway. So as long as it's not worse on PC, and has a few extra options available, it will be just fine.

There are definitely a lot of things up in the air with it at the moment, and not a ton of information to go on, but from the little I've seen, I'm excited. I'm a little confused about what's abominable about it. :confused: If these guys pull it off, it will be a major accomplishment for such a small team, and indie devs in general.

Perhaps this sort of game isn't your thing. If not, cool. If you like exploratory sandboxes in space though...
 
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GearChoices said:
I'm laughing that people actually think this abomination is going to actually be anywhere near as good as people are hyping it, if it even ends up being decent at all, considering it is a console game through and through.
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So because its on a console its just gonna suck right? because if any game is on a console it automatically sucks?
 
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