Divisive games exist. There's no way to get around that. In an industry where everything we play is going to be subjective to the person who plays it, we have to learn to accept that we just aren't going to like some games that others do like.

Enter No Man's Sky. It's a game that takes place on planets and in space. When it comes to gameplay mechanics, there are basically only four things to do:

1. Fly around space
2. Explore planets
3. Go to waypoints and essentially "liberate bases" ala Far Cry (meaning that you interact with whatever place you are at)
4. Mine stuff

Sure, you can sell stuff at the Galactic Trade Network, learn languages, pick up blueprints and improve your exosuit/multi-tool/starship, buy new starships, and a handful of other things. However, in terms of the pure gameplay mechanics themselves, there are four things to do in the game.

Personally, I like simplicity. This is why I did every possible thing in open world games like Assassin's Creed 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Far Cry 2 and 3, Skyrim, and so many others: the mechanics of exploration were simple. As a matter of fact, it was the main thing that even kept me playing those games at all. It's the reason why, after all of these years, Oregon Trail is still such a solid game: simplicity and exploration.

There is the survival game aspect as well, and many can say that it isn't fully realized and that it's beating a dead horse. I won't disagree on the latter, as anyone with eyes who can look at Steam Greenlight knows how insanely flooded the marketplace is with survival games at the moment.

No Man's Sky never feels like "survival game" is its core aspect. Exploration is always front and center. The rest of the package is a way to interact with that exploration on a deeper level.

Nonetheless, there are a lot of voices out there screaming and crying out "the game is boring" and "the game sucks." To those people, I speak with simplicity in the same way that No Man's Sky offers simplicity in its gameplay: that's okay. You don't have to like the game. It's not going to be a game for everyone. For a video game company, that's not the kind of thing they want to hear about a game that has been in development for a little under half a decade. Video game companies want to make money so they can keep making video games. At a $60 price tag, people are looking at the simplicity of the game and wondering "should I spend money on it, wait for a sale, or avoid it completely?"

The answer is "do whichever feels right for you."

In this, I personally look at No Man's Sky as a commentary on itself within the video game industry. The worlds and creatures you will explore and analyze within No Man's Sky will start feeling a bit like the same thing over and over after a bit, but everything has its little quirks and bits of uniqueness. If you don't care for one of those things, there are plenty of others out there that can appeal to you and do right by you.

If you don't like No Man's Sky, that's fine. There are other worlds out there for you to explore, but let those who wish to explore this one be at peace while they do so.

Different people are gonna like different games. There's no reason to like everything, or even have an opinion on a game you haven't played. I think the problem is that everyone wants to throw in their two cents about every new release. It's like Facebook political posting that's just people shouting things.

I think Patrick said something about wanting to be part of the discussion when a new game is out. But I find it much more enjoyable to do what you want, even years after release, and let everyone else do their own thing, too.

Austin talked about how relaxing the game was on VICE and I'd agree with that. It's not a game for people who want to see a story through to the end, but it's fun to sit down and fly around or find some new locations or upgrade your equipment a bit.

I'm glad that I can spend a bunch of hours with this game and walk away at any time without the pressure to knock it off my Not played list on steam. It's just there when you want to fly around.

I think most already know it's OK to not like something.

I knew pretty early that No man's sky wasn't for me. I've always preferred tightly designed games as opposed to open games like this (There's only a few open world games that I can play). But I'm glad that people who like these types of games enjoy NMS!

I do find everything around NMS interesting though, the development and hype gone off rails. It's funny because I did the same "imagine ideas that weren't there" with the original Crysis. I imagined Crysis to have this living world, where the aliens were in the background and could strike at anytime and their AI would be like nothing we've seen in the gaming world. The story would be the most complex story written and the game would literally change the gaming world etc. Turns out it was an OK shooter. Although Crytek really did put more fuel on the hype fire, and promised a lot of stuff that they never delivered on. Still, it's actually really interesting to see it happening to NMS from the outside, I can understand how some people expect and imagine stuff that isn't there, I've done it as well.

I just requested a refund on Steam. I really like how seamless it is to leave a planet and travel to a new one and there's a sense of wonder when entering the atmosphere and wondering what the place will look like but you listing those 4 things is precisely why I wanted a refund.

There is too little shit to do.

There very well may be awesome updates to this game in the future that change its scope even more and hopefully adds some real depth but now in its current state with a $60 price tag is a rip-off in my book.

For me, other than performance issues on the PC, I think my problem with it is how shallow the worlds feel. It's cool that there are a ton of randomly generated worlds to explore, and each are 1:1 scale, but they stop becoming interesting fast because none of it feels bespoke. I hardly ever want to go exploring because nothing as a unique detail that I haven't seen five-worlds in, so I just do mining and ruin exploration as quickly as possible and leave the planets.

Agreed, but the majority of people who also post on the internet (reddit) have made it clear that it's not OK if a game doesn't appeal to them. A lot of the criticisms have to do with wanting to the game to be more mechanically dense, at which point it becomes a different game.

Sometimes I feel tired being reasobale, because the internet seems full of people who are not willing to accept that different people like different things. It's objectively terrible and should have been something else, so that it appeals more.

Just keep me out of the interface! I actually enjoy running around on the planets but I've posted before about how the interface slows everything down such that I can't enjoy the vistas and creatures enough. Too far to run to the next outpost but too slow to get into and out of the ship to fly there and when flying my controls don't allow me to get a good look at the ground. I never know which way I've been or where I'm going. Most egregious for me on the PC is having to hold the mouse button down to select an action, when I exit the game I have to reset my brain not to hold the mouse down when clicking on stuff like I have to do in NMS. Things that hopefully can be patched out.

This is turning into essentially another "What are your thoughts on No Man's Sky" thread, and we are trying to keep those mostly contained in one topic. Remember that blogs cross posted to the forums become de facto forum posts.

http://www.giantbomb.com/no-man-s-sky/3030-44656/forums/early-impressions-1800652/#236