The Future: Procedural Generated Games

Normally games are derived from code, this code is handcrafted into rich and vibrant world, intended to give us a direct story and narrative. But what happens when the games aren’t made by us anymore? Specifically I want to talk about procedural generated games, these are games where the worlds are made as you play. Instead of code that’s tells the game how things look, the game generates features and worlds out of algorithms.

Now in particular I want to talk about No Man’s Sky, but this applies to all procedural generated games to come. The idea that we as characters have a mission, which in No Man’s Sky is to reach the center of the universe. This mission frames the groundwork of our story, unlike Second Life, where we have endless possibilities and nothing to do, we have direction in this game. As a metaphor for life, No Man’s Sky’s narrative tries to tackle a bigger picture, giving the game enhanced value as the story is a question about our ultimate question as a people, “Why are we here?” This connection to our character drives our hero forward into what can be described as the ultimate game, where the point is to go where no man has gone before.

Now when talking about cyberspace and a future, where we as a people become more interconnected to machines, I want to think that this type of game can be the next frontier. We have talked before about how, in the future we could have are minds uploaded in a Holodeck, and this game here, now offers us an actual good representation of a futuristic Holodeck. Could a game like this serve as a new world for people, once we all live in the machine? These ideas fall along the plot-line of the Matrix. But that in itself reinstates this point, isn’t the matrix just a game world that people were forced into?

An interesting question I have when looking at these platforms, is that we play multiplayer games for what it is, and way to interact with other people. What if we come to a point where we can’t find other people? While No Man’s Sky is very secretive over their multiplayer options, the general consensus is that it will have some sort of multiplayer feature. One line from their creator Sean Murray, has me intrigued, when he was asked about multiplayer he responded, “Yes, there will probably be multiplayer, but good luck finding anyone else with a Universe with over 17 trillion planets.”

If in the future we are all just set free into random points across this vast gaming universe, that in itself is a reason to play, besides reaching the center of the universe, we could spend years or even decades trying to find even a single other person. These type of games, offer us a look into the future, they offer us an uncharted world or universe to explore, where no one has been before. Procedural generated content is the future of gaming in my opinion, at least on a large scale. Replay value is what brings us back over and over to the games we love, in No Man’s Sky alone, if you were trying to explore every possible variant of planet, and you only took one second to explore a planet the size of earth, you would be there long after our sun burned out.