No Man’s Space Engine

No Man’s Sky has just released to a somewhat mixed reception. It’s a game I’ve kept an eye on since its impressive reveal during an E3 stage demo back in 2014. The ability to seamlessly travel from surface to space, with an emphasis on exploration and discovery in a galaxy full of strange alien worlds and life.

Based on what I’ve seen in various gameplay streams, No Man’s Sky appears to deliver on that promise – you travel from one star system to the next, exploring new worlds, cataloguing new life, with the ultimate goal to reach the centre of the galaxy. Which is fairly in line with my impression of the game from the early videos and information.

I say ‘impression’ because specific information on many aspects of No Man’s Sky was, and still is, rather vague. I quite liked the mystery that surrounded the project prior to release, but with little information to go on, hype for the game rose based on player expectation, not on solid fact.

Even now, post-release, there are still aspects to the game that remain unclear, particularly with regard to its multiplayer aspect. Clarity is required. Personally, I’ve remained rather wary of No Man’s Sky. The core aspects of exploration and discovery appealed to me, but they depended heavily upon the complexity of the procedural generation system.

Would No Man’s Sky truly offer a diverse range of worlds, environments and life as we saw in the limited glimpses of the pre-release videos? Or would we see an obvious mechanical system at work, compiling worlds and creatures from a limited range of assets? Unfortunately, based on what I’ve seen, it appears to be the latter.

It still looks like it might be fun, but not exactly £39.99 fun based on the clearly limited content and the extremely basic systems of trade, combat and alien interaction. There’s also a far more heavy focus on ‘survival’ and inventory management than I was expecting, and not what I was hoping for – at least not to this degree.

No Man’s Sky isn’t quite what many were expecting and many are disappointed. To make the release situation worse, the game has serious technical issues. The console version of the game seems plagued by random crashes, and the PC version is very much f**ked for a lot of people.

That said, I’m still going to keep an eye on the game, on its progress, its patches and future content. And maybe I’ll even pick it up in a future sale if it’s reduced to a price I feel is more appropriate for what’s on offer. But in the meantime, if I want to scratch that space exploration itch, what better way than by returning to Space Engine.

I first wrote about Space Engine in August 2012, but it’s undergone quite an overhaul since then, most notably in terms of UI. The engine itself is also far more stable and easy on performance than I recall. If No Man’s Sky has disappointed you or if, like me, you’re waiting to see if/when it improves, then I highly recommend checking out Space Engine. If No Man’s Sky thinks it’s big and ambitious, it’s got nothing on this.

And it’s free, so you’ve really no excuse not to give it a spin.