What world did I wake up in?

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/will-the-infinite-worlds-of-no-mans-sky-revolutionize-gaming/

Seriously, what the hell is happening? For a site that features the sort of mainstream watercooler topic writing that Grantland has to have a pure No Man's Sky writeup? I mean their previous articles have been about things like the development history of Gears of War, and various articles about why certain games are terrible. But here's No Man's Sky.

What is the saturation point of this game? How much of a backlash potential are people going to build up before we even find out what the game is?

This just feels like total "through the looking glass" stuff to me. I dunno, maybe it's not something worth noticing at all.

I think we know what this game is. It's a walking simulator + you discover stuff on randomly generated planets + you get in sweet X-wing fights or whatever because you just find random abandoned spacecraft for no reason.

But yeah, oh man, are game journalists hyping it up way too much. The game can procedurally generate planets and animals that don't look like total ass, but how interesting it will be to play as a game for more than the first couple hours is still very much an unknown.

I wouldn't say Grantland is mainstream water cooler stuff. The whole point of that site is collecting great writers and giving them freedom to write features on what they want. While they often do cover mainstream topics, they are often through a completely unique lens that you wouldn't find in many other places. Like Bill Simmons writing a piece that is ostensibly about LeBron, but filling it with mostly discussions on where his personality compares/stands in the halls of some of the greatest players ever. Or him writing another story about Melo not being a superstar by throwing down a gauntlet of historical statistics that would make most statisticians cry with joy.

Also the game isn't coming out till late 2015 - early 2016, all this hype is gonna get people burned out.

This is, like, one thing in this industry right now that people can feel good about. The people making it come off endearing and genuine, and it's a really ingenious idea. If it works out, it actually could be something really fucking special. I think people are kind of into the idea of feeling good about something going on right now.

Maybe that's just me.

Or Tom Bissell writing some of the best video game editorials on the internet. Video game coverage on Grantland is neither surprising nor new.

Well then 40% of people have to hate it if 60% of people love it. It wouldn't be Video Games On The Internet if it wasn't.

I guess so. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with managed expectations or even no expectations, heck, even actively not looking forward to the game (it's probably not going to be for everybody). I just find it weird - and I'm probably guilty of it at some point in the past - that we have to shit on the hopes of people who are looking forward to stuff.

No Man's Sky is not a walking simulator. They have specifically said it is not just Proteus in space. There are enemies and hostile creatures on planets and the game has combat mechanics.

Great to see Netw3rk getting some more exposure. He's one of my favorite writers on internet and a fantastic Twitter follow as well. His "review" of Watch Dogs is also an awesome piece piece of writing. He's a great ambassador of video games to the mainstream audience (as mainstream as Grantland can be, I guess).

Anytime something is "hyped" or whatever, there are always going to be people there to try and tear it down. Will No Man's Sky live up to these expectations? I have no idea. The whole thing could crash and burn and turn into a total disaster. But I find it hard to not to root for a studio of 4 young, ambitious dudes trying to make their dream game. Maybe I'm overly sentimental but I find the whole thing really inspiring.

@bisonhero: you also have a gun/scanning/multi tool type thing. But yeah, looks great but I don't know about the interactive part.

The E3 trailer plays every hour or so at my work and it never doesn't capture my attention when the PC leaves the cave and sees the sky. I think half the reason why sci-fi has done so well in both film and video games is that the visual of a different horizon, a different sky, a truly alien environment is absolutely arresting. The dream of escaping our pale blue dot is breath-takingly massive when you think about it, and as much as I enjoy cynical space-trucker futures, No Man's Sky has tapped into the wonder and gravity of possibility, of discovery.

This week on the Bombcast, they take umbrage with the somewhat simple tone of Destiny, but I actually really love that tone because it hearkens back to early sci-fi, an optimistic and altruistic world shaped by the best in human behavior rather than the worst. That shit really works with the Halo choirs everywhere, it gives it a real sense of ... I hate to say glory, but that's what it's gotta be.

Tom Bissell writes about why games that are popular and well liked are terrible. He's the latest in a long line of people who have somehow decided to focus on and write about something they have clearly long ago started to despise.

And those articles are about GTAV and Gears of War and Skyrim.

So suddenly No Man's Sky is on par with "RELEASE EVENT AAA MARKETING BUDGET HIGHER THAN DEVELOPMENT BUDGET" style games? This game that people know almost nothing about other than space and dinosaurs and automation? Sorry, but this being on Grantland is weird.

Grantland has better writing than just about any games related place on the internet, so you should be happy a website of it's stature is even covering video games...they could just stick to sports. I think they have genuine interest in it.

Well now I know that either you haven't actually read his work, or you're the type of person that transmutes even the tiniest amount of criticism about a game you liked into a personal attack upon all that you hold dear.

Bissell wrote a fantastic article (not a review), for instance, about the tone of GTA V as it compared to GTA IV and Red Dead, and his mixed feelings about the fact that what he saw was a tonal regression. He also said that he admired the hell out of it. But sure, feel free to simplify the article down to "IT'S TERRIBLE" if you really insist.

It'll be the people complaining about the hype now that complain about the game not meeting the hype when it releases, making the whole process redundant. Ho hum, and the cycle continues.