No Man's Sky 18 minute IGN gameplay video

I was excited about the game when it was initially revealed and then I kinda went into a low hype mode, but I still knew I wanted to get it when it came out.

I'm watching the 18 minute thing and now I feel like I'm going to have to take a few days off work to play it. Agree?

It's funny that I love aimless exploring in my day to day life but I absolutely hate it in videogames?

I don't know if I will click play on this video or not.

It looks like it's going to be one of my favorite video games ever.

It's certainly going to change the industry.

Yes I'll be taking a day off and sinking into this game (shame they kept coming out of the game to see people I have not interest in (apart from SM)).

It's interesting that he brought up Peter Molyneux because honestly this looks like one of his games.

But look, I want to be excited I want to believe everything Hello Games is saying, but my jaded adult brain keeps looking for puppet strings and smoke screens.

If this game is as good as it looks, it won't just be the indie game ever made; it has the possibility to change how games are made forever.... which is a crazy, crazy thought.

All I've wanted out of this game is cool looking environments to explore. It has that, and more, and that's so cool. Really looking forward to the final product.

60 FPS but he's using a DualShock 4 controller...hm. I wonder if this was a PC build or if he was actually on a PS4? I'm sure they won't tell us.

Man, that UI is straight out of Destiny.

yep, as soon as this gets released Ima disappear for a month, I'm pretty sure of that now.

It's a pretty rough draw distance if that is indeed on a PC. I could see this being the console version.

What the hell is this game about? I mean it's all very impressive that you have this entire galaxy to explore, but doesn't that also make it very susceptible to become stale quickly? I don't get a sense of awe exploring randomly generated planets. There's no doubt this is the biggest sandbox game ever, but what good is that, if it's all boring and pointless. We'll see how it all works out I guess, cause even though I have this notion in my head I can't get rid of, I'm still fascinated by this game.

This looks like it will get boring quickly tbh. Purpose/goal is important in a game to keep a player going.

@pilgrimm1981: Maybe we'll find out more in IGN's next commercial. I mean feature.

I already couldn't wait for this. And after watching.....I really can't wait. Looks great to me.

I really just want to see a video of them doing a thing. Completing a task. Say, "Let's go get some metal from a molten planet and upgrade our ship so it can do this new thing" or "let's raid this space colony for a new weapon", or "let's hunt this big monster thing and trade what we get for money / craft something". Just anything at all. I'm gonna play the game and everything, but I'm not going to play this game to walk around nothing planets. I'm going to play the game.

Maybe those systems aren't in place yet or something.

I guess this just isn't a genre for you. I've loved these space exploration games since the original Elite. For me, exploring the universe, finding interesting locations, trade routes etc. is gratifying in itself. That's also kinda the way I've approached all MMO's and sandbox games, the story has never compelled me in them, in Skyrim, EverQuest, FFXIV and all those games, the only thing I found interesting was exploring the world, sneaking through areas which I was way too low level for etc, and when I had explored enough of the landmass, I stopped playing them. Reaching max level, getting loot and grinding through endgame content has never interested me, but even after 25 years I regularly return to Elite II, Privateer and other space exploration games, just to explore their near endless universes.

This seems like it'll scratch that same itch, even though actually don't think it seems as big as the Elite games. First and foremost, while there seems to be a vast amount of stars, the scale of each star system and the distance between them seems very scaled down, whereas most other games in the genre have generally had realistic distances between stars and planets, and it seems like moving in and out of orbit is pretty much effortless in this (something which took several minutes in Elite 2 and 3 for example).

This is a genre as old as platformers, and to me, exploring star systems and planets is about as fundamental to the genre as running to the right in Mario, and I don't find either of them getting stale.

Or maybe what we're looking at IS the game, or most of it, which is what I'm concerned about. They're being awfully cagey about a lot of key gameplay details and spending a lot of time talking about (and now demoing) abstract systems instead of what those systems all mean for the player when brought together for the actual game part of No Man's Sky.

Nice to finally see a bit more showing rather than telling, although there was still plenty of telling in there. At this point it sorta makes it seem like doing anything in the game is gonna be a big commitment that will take a lot of time. Also, there's only so many times they can do the "zoom out and look at all these stars" before it loses all its impact.

I could post multiple different gifs to explain my desire for this game. The two that stick out in my mind come from the Simpsons and Futurama.

This game will likely be my game of the ever.

I wonder how much of the Minecraft playerbase is going to jump over the No Man's Sky. It seems even bigger and more open ended than Minecraft and there seems to be much more to see and do. I can't wait to get my hands on this. It is amazing how much the small team at Hello Games has been able to achieve here.

really that's what you're getting from this?

I love Pirates!, Terraria, and dicking around in open-world games, accomplishing nothing story-related. But, the exploration in those games results in something. The exploration in this game, arguably, is meant to result in something. Why else is there an inventory, currency system, trade routes, weapons...? I want to see what they have stated exists and what they are implying exists: things to do. This isn't Proteus. This game has things to do. All that I am saying is I want to see those things. Whether that be building a dumb rock house, plumbing the depths of a cavern system for a rare mineral, heading into dangerous territory - I want to see what rewards are like. And no, they haven't implied that exploration is it's own reward - from what I have heard, they have specifically said you can upgrade yourself, your ship, and forge alliances with factions.

@mb: Yeah, I'm not expecting them to reveal all their secrets, but I am now over repeatedly showing us how you can explore stuff. I get it. I'm very impressed, in seriousness, and I do want to play the game. But, I like for there to be goals or rewards in my games. Even Minecraft has em (dig down, get better shit, for example). Let's see them!

Look, it's great that what they have shown is enough for so many people. My attention was piqued because they said that there were things to do, though, and I wanna see those things. The idea of a well-developed gameplay and systems core within a nearly infinite universe is, of course, extremely exciting, but this has thus far been like teasing the Super Bowl by showing us the playing field over and over again.

I don't get this part at all. No Man's Sky looks like a really cool game, but nothing of what they've shown so far hasn't been done before - procedural generation has been used to create the universes in almost all the space exploration games since 1984, and seamless planetary landings have been around since 1993 at the very least. This is an incredibly spectacular looking evolutionary step of the genre, but the basics have been around since the mid 80's, some of it even since the late 70's. I see lot of genre evolution here, but no revolution.

Still hard to believe the seamless transition from planet to space to universe to another planet, but I guess it works.

I'm a bit weary on the wanted level thing, seems like if you fuck up just once (even defending yourself against an animal), you'll have to abandon everything you're doing or end up fighting increasing hordes of robots.

This thing needs to come out soon though or I'll lose interest again. And add Morpheus/Oculus support.

@mb: FNA lets you use Dualshock 4 directly without emulating XInput. Axiom Verge does it on PC.

@mb: I don't see how they're being cagey. They've said numerous times that it's an exploration game, and the upgrade/crafting systems are in place to help facilitate travel. Thats it. They've said exactly what the game is and people keep going "yeah, but what is it?" It is what you've seen. There wont be some massive story, there won't be involved quest lines. It's digital tourism and it looks fucking rad. If that doesn't sound appealing to you then hey, thats cool too.

@planetfunksquad said:

If they literally said that upgrading and crafting will only help facilitate travel, then I misunderstood them.

My god...No Man's Sky might just be THE perfect " Listening to a podcast while playing" - game of all time.

@kcin: In the video he says you upgrade your ship and weapon, for things like better mining capability and bigger drives on your ship. You do this because the closer you get to the middle the more hostile your environments are. Thats it. It facilitates travel by making things a little easier in hostile places.

I must have missed that part, too.

WHAT IS NO MAN'S SKY?

@planetfunksquad: Okay, great. So it's the same reason for upgrading as any other modern sandbox game, basically. It is still what I thought it was. As such, I still want to see some challenge and reward.

@mb: In the video he upgrades the weapon to mine shit better. He then says you use the materials to either upgrade you ship with bigger guns or drives or sell the materials for cash to buy stuff on space stations. The goal is to get to the centre of the universe. Things get harder as you go, meaning having better shit will be helpful thus facilitating travel. It's all there. I think people just want this game to be something it isn't.

@kcin: Yeah, it is, but it has massive procedural worlds. Thats the hook. Like I said if that doesn't sound fun to you thats fine, but I don't see how they're being cagey is all.

@planetfunksquad: It seems like you're making some assumptions here, but maybe I haven't followed the game as closely as you have.

@planetfunksquad: Maybe some do, but many of us don't want it to be something it isn't, we just want to see how it plays.

There is a goal to the game (getting to the center of the universe). There are indirect sub-goals you must achieve in order to accomplish the main goal (acquiring materials to upgrade your ship). I want to see them go through the process of accomplishing a sub-goal. What is that like? Is it rewarding? Is it hard? Is it cool? Shooting a hole in a rock is neat and all, but I don't get the impression that the mechanics are any fun yet, because I'm just not seeing any gameplay mechanics being tested yet. If they want you to walk around in peace and fly smoothly everywhere, great, but what they describe includes conflict, which results in reward, and we haven't seen that yet. How that part plays will determine whether or not I WANT to engage in upgrading my ship and my character in order to reach the center of the universe.

If, in the end, the gameplay takes a backseat to basking in the results of the RNGs, then no, it won't be my kind of game. They haven't said that is what it is, though, hence my continued interest and unwavering concern.

@mb: I mean nothing I said wasn't said/shown by Sean in the video. But yeah, we'll see.

Tell that to Minecraft

Every time I see this game, I get flashbacks to when Will Wright was demonstrating Spore. I then get immediately bummed out. THAT game was supposed to be the one to change everything. But you know... Fuck EA and all that.

Minecraft did have a goal/purpose, though, in building things. In Minecraft, you explore the world and gather resources so you can build cities, castles, giant penises and whatever else your heart desires. Upgrading your equipment is a means to an end, not the end itself.

In No Man's Sky, you explore the world and gather resources so you can... explore the world and gather resources more efficiently, so you can explore even more and gather even more resources.

No, that was just something you could do in the game. You had no purpose or goal. Especially before release(when they had creative mode, and a light tutorial) the game was literally just do whatever the fuck you want. Myself and many other people just played the game for exploring. I didn't give a shit about building, I just liked finding caves and exploring them.

If anything No Man's Sky has more of an objective: Get to the center of the Universe. Everyone is trying to get there and to do so you have to upgrade your ship and weapons by collecting various shit from the universe.

@conmulligan said:

Yea. I never even played Destiny, and it's the first thing that popped into my head. All things considered, not a bad thing to copy though.

It seems you did. There are no bases to build in this game, your ship is the base. There must be like an hour of footage of this game on the internet now along with tons of interviews and behind the scenes documentaries and people are still asking what it is? I don't understand, they have said what it is hundreds of times now. Like why was everybody so shocked that there was combat in the E3 demo? They showed combat in the very first trailer.

For me, this game never really grabbed me and isn't as it continues. There's cool things about it but if the core gameplay doesn't look interesting. The "loop" of gameplay as they call it looks like mostly wandering, crafting that isn't on the level of many other games, and combat that isn't on the level of many other games. The stuff they've shown all looks pretty same-y. I totally respect that other people are way into that but I don't think its my type of game or it is so revolutionary.

I will say it looks quite pretty. Art, UI, all that. Even the font.

I love the idea of discovering planets etc but i have a feeling all those jerkwad tweenz will find em all before me.

Planet xXelnaga420Xx remains a pipe dream :'(

About what I expected, which is a great thing. It's like Proteus times a billion.

I found my new game for catching up on podcasts and audio books. Seems like a chill ass game.

I'm not sure who you're addressing. I don't think there is a base to build. No one said anything about a base. If you are referring to "build a dumb rock house", that was a joke example of a goal in a sandbox game.

I don't have any misconceptions about what this game is. It's a sandbox game with a single goal. I get it. And like all sandbox games, it has gameplay mechanics, which you use to achieve that goal. I want to see them do things that amount to working towards that goal; to play the game they described. So far they have just walked and flown to show what worlds look like. There is more to the game, and they have said as much. I want to see that. Saying that the footage they have shown of this game so far is representative of the gameplay experience we will have when it's released is like walking a character across the surface of a Minecraft seed and never digging or building a thing.

I don't really have more to say about this, and I can't be any clearer.

Is that ship a low-key tribute to Galak-Z?! I want to believe it is.