No Man's Sky or Astroneer

I have a hankering for a base building/exploration game. I'm getting a new PC for my birthday with all the trimmings. Prefer playing solo. Which of these titles would y'all recommend?

They're quite different so it might boil down to want you want most out of the game. From my experience with both if you lean more towards the exploration side go for No Man's Sky, if you are more into the modular base thing, go for Astroneer - obviously there's the aesthetic differences too if that's an important thing.

I would also suggest, if this is your first PC, to have a little look around Steam and the other online places - there are so many of these sorts of games out there now you might find one even more tailored to what you're after.

@stantongrouse: Thanks, grouse. Does Astroneer have any kind of combat? Also, I've been with Steam a long time and have a good library built up. Just haven't had a modern gaming PC for a loooooooong time. So the library is outdated.

Have you played Subnautica? I would play that over No Man's Sky, for sure. I haven't played Astroneer.

@bane: Isn't Subnautica all underwater? That just seems odd to me. Is movement a problem? What about the size of the world?

Those are very different games, as pointed out.

I LOVE Astroneer, ever since pre-alpha I've been dreaming along with the devs and have played
so many hours of 1.0+ with my partner.
BUT I can't speak for it as a solo game since a lot of what I enjoy is creating funny solutions
and sweet base layouts to shock and awe my partner - while they go out and haul back materials for me to research and mess with.
That's our general loop. Sometimes I make huge drills and burrow my way from one end of the planet to another.
You kinda end up creating your own fun. I don't know how long it would hold single player appeal.

As far as I know, Astroneer is limited to one galaxy, with 5 planets and 2 moons.
I don't know about their DLC plans, if any. If playing alone you will be alone, there's not
a single creature (afaik) wandering any of those planets besides you.

NMS has no limit to planets or creatures, so there's that. I tried really hard to get into it,
I try with every major update. It just never hooks me so I can't speak to its strengths or weaknesses.

@thebooknerd: Yeah, it's primarily underwater, but there is a bit of dry land to explore. The movement is great. As you explore and discover new things you can improve both the speed you move as well as the depths you can reach. The world is quite large. I built my main base closer to one of the edges and it took a bit to cross to the other side, but that's only part of the story. There's depth to the world, hidden caves, large areas under the ocean floor, and a couple dozen different biomes. The base building is a ton of fun, too.

Subnautica was second on my GOTY 2018 list, behind only Red Dead Redemption 2.

No Mans Sky base building is not great so if thats what you're looking for mostly then you won't scratch that itch - or rather won't scratch it easily. Most, if not all, of NMS is constant grind treadmilling. Literally every little thing requires a lot of resources and the loop in my opinion is highly unsatisfying. No matter what you do you are constantly being punished resource-wise. When you explore you are almost always being assaulted by environmental meters going down, and when you finally find that rare capsule to unlock precious inventory slots for your suit, they are locked away by even more resources which you very likely do not have on hand. Simply taking off in your ship drains fuel, as well as every other function, meaning that you can suddenly get stuck with a ship that can't take off until you crawl around the planet and find enough resources to craft the specific take-off fuel it uses.

I like building games and exploration games. I was really into Minecraft back in the day because it was chill and the loop of going out and exploring and then coming back to build your dream Barbie-doll-house was fun. NMS felt tedious and it seemed to be pushing back against me whenever I tried to have fun. I played for over 20 hours or so and I can honestly say I regret putting all that time into it - and this is after the big update that was supposed to make it much better.

I have not played Astroneer but it has been on my wishlist for a long time. Looks like a lot of fun if not a bit mindless.

The big problem these games have over something like Minecraft is that they offer pre-fab pieces. In Minecraft you could really build anything, any sort of house or structure that you can imagine using simple blocks and then put down cables, wiring, doors, etc all in very free-form fashion. In games where you simply plop down pre-fab parts and connect them it's not nearly as satisfying because your base is the same base as everyone elses, just the pieces are laid out differently, it's not as unique and freeform and as such doesn't hold your interest as long.