Let’s Talk About NO MAN’S SKY with the NEXT update

No Man’s Sky has been one of the most controversial games ever because of the hype surrounding it and the difference between what the customers were expecting and what they actually recived. If you’re interested in that, a Google search can give you a lot more information than I can.

This year, a couple months ago actually, a huge update (the NEXT update) was pushed to the game and believe me, it has made all the difference.

No Man’s Sky is a psuedo-sandbox world with a few main arching storylines as well as a number of side missions. You are… well, you actually don’t know who you are. You wake up next to a crashed starship on some planet. The mystery only starts there.

The planets are randomly generated, with plants, minerals, and animals. To fix your crashed starship, you have to search around the area for the minerals (and stone) that it takes. With blueprints you discover or that are given to you, you use these components to create items that you’ll need. For example, your hazard protection unit is powered by sodium, so it’s a good idea to have sodium or sodium nitrate on hand. Carbon powers your mining laser and, without your mining laser, you’re bascially screwed on collecting anything.

These components also help you create your home base — with help from mission instructions — and give you a place to work (or to hire others to work for you) and develop a stream of income that you’ll need to keep your resources flowing.

Now all of this sounds like a sandbox so far, with the exception of mission instructions. On the many starbases you will visit, there are a number of entities who will offer you jobs and missions for you to complete and earn a reward. You also receive other core missions — and for me, it’s these core missions that change everything about NMS.

I love a good story in my video games and so far, the core missions I have received have been interesting enough that I want to continue building my base, make money, and find out who exactly I am — the big mystery in the game.

I find mining for materials comforting for some reason and when I want to be alone…? This is where I will go. For me, it’s soothing and relaxing to run across this planet, tagging items of interest and simply just exploring the worlds I come across.

Starship controls (oh, yeah, you can fly) are a bit clunky for me, but that’s probably more due to the fact that I haven’t flown (like in a 4-d space simulator). I’m sure I’ll get used to them. My first space battle — I won and received my first freighter to send out frigates on missions for trade commodities or units (the money in this game).

I’m excited about NMS since the update and I’ve logged ~25 game hours or so since I’ve been playing — and all but a few minutes of that has been with the NEXT update. I’m eager to see what they do next and how the story plays out.