No Man’s Sky has had a great month, coincidentally around the launch of the other big space adventure of the day.
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No Man’s Sky has been one of the best examples of a video redemption story, and developer Hello Games never stopped expanding the game with new content, and more features. Just recently, the procedural space adventure celebrated its seventh anniversary with the Echoes update, and it doesn’t look like there’s an end in sight to this support.
But do these updates bring back players? The answer is an emphatic yes! Hello Games founder, Sean Murray, recently revealed that No Man’s Sky is having “its biggest month in the last few years.” Interestingly, this is happening across all platforms where No Man’s Sky is available - so PC, consoles, Mac, and even VR.
I played it like 3 months ago before the Echoes update, so this isn't based on the launch version or anything.
I mean yeah, but they don't look any better or more varied than Starfield's planets, that's for sure. It's neat that they added caves but the caves are also pretty boring. There's not much in them beyond some more resources. You don't have the expansiveness or endlessness of minecraft caves nor the buried mines and mob spawners and lava and more interesting underground stuff.
It's serviceable, but I wouldn't describe it as fun, as in I don't actively enjoy the space combat. I find Starfield's juggling of systems and targeting on top of standard dog fighting maneuvering at least a little more engaging, but a serviceable system that's not that much fun kind of describes most of No Man's Sky to me.
I find it's crafting to be far less satisfying than Minecraft's or say Subnautica's, and a lot more grindy, but that could just be me.
Again, I know they have all these different systems, but it really feels like each system is just barely enough of a system to entertain you for a couple hours, but doesn't have the depth / polish / interweaving complexity to truly hold you.