Ah, No Man’s Sky.
Arguably, one of the most talked about and intriguing games at this year’s E3.
No Man’s Sky is a sci-fi game centered around the exploration of an infinite universe being created by Hello Games, a 10-person studio based in the UK.
Now, I could not contain my excitement when laying my eyes on the new trailer at the Sony conference. They had shown the game during VGX and it had originally piqued my interest, but this trailer showed off way more than the previous one. “This doesn't look like any other game out there,” I thought and with good reason; it isn’t like any other game out there. I’m sure you can make comparisons to certain aspects of it (mining in Minecraft, dogfights in Star Fox), but I can not recall one game where all of these elements were put together in such a way.
For one, everything in the game from plants, to creatures, to stars, to even your own ship, is procedurally generated. For those unaware of what procedurally generated means, it essentially means that everything is being made using an algorithm instead of some pre made artwork. Sean Murray, Founder of Hello Games, explained it best in an interview with Danny O’Dwyer of Gamespot during the first day of E3.
“Say you build a cat, okay? When you build a cat, its almost like the game, the tech that we built. I’ll describe it this way. You know, Tony Hawk's [Pro Skater], right, where you would create a skater? You know, you create a skater, or like in Tiger Woods or whatever, and you could move all the sliders and you would create any variation thereof. So imagine that we’re doing that for everything. For every tree, for every building, ship, everything…What’s happening is that one of our artists will create a cat, but by doing that they'll also create a lion, and a tiger, and a panther, every variant of that four-legged creature that walks in that way, but like continuing on that to be as mutated as you can possibly imagine it.”
By creating just one creature, the software that they built will randomly generate a different variation of that creature, be it with long horns or stripes or what have you. The astounding thing is that this will apply to the entire game.
Another aspect that intrigues me is the freedom that you are given right from the start.
You start out on your own undiscovered planet. No starting point will ever be exactly the same as any other. From there, its up to you. Granted, this level of freedom might be too much for some gamers. I have been hearing from some people that, “If the game isn’t telling me to go anywhere or do anything, why do I even want to bother playing it? There is no point.” I suppose that people who need a “quest,” have one in the sense that your “main objective” is to get to upgrade your ship enough, using resources gathered from the planets you visit, so that you can make it to the center of the universe. The beauty of No Man’s Sky is that there is so much more to it than just completing that main objective. Just because you reached the center does not mean that the game is over. There is so much left to explore, be it on foot, in the air, or even under water.
Thankfully, the ship-to-ship combat looks great and will persuade the naysayers to stick around a little longer. I would say it reminded me of the dogfight with Star Wolf and his gang in Star Fox 64, but taken to a new level because you are not confined to a closed off area; you are free to start the fight in space and finish it anywhere else, if you so choose.
One aspect of the game that I have yet to see is how land combat will look like. Seeing as the game is in the first-person view, I can only assume that the combat will be more traditional, but with the rest of the game being the way it is, who is to say?
No Man’s Sky is bringing about an excitement that I have not felt for a game in a long time. I can't even compare it to the excitement I felt when I saw the new open-world Zelda (which, trust me, I got REALLY excited for), because thats just old ground being covered in a new way. This on the other hand, is completely new, completely different, and completely up for me to explore. There is a lot of love being put into this game and you can tell from how the developers just talk about it.
If you will allow me to geek out for a second…
At one point in the trailer, the player jumps into his ship after watching a huge creature, that resembles what we know as a Rhinoceros, rampage through a small thicket of trees. The player proceeds to fly off into space where he meets up with what I can only assume are 3 other friendly players. Then, from what looks to be some sort of hyper-speed travel, a fleet of large ships suddenly appear. The friendly players commence a dog fight with some enemy players (again, I assume), but they don’t finish this fight in space. This is where we see the player begin their descent into a neighboring planet, one that could be seen from the original planet that we started on, mind you. As he makes his descent you can see the mountains begin to populate as well as foliage and a variety of other visual elements. This is where my excitement reached it’s peak. If I saw this planet from so far away and I was able to actually reach it and touch down on it, what other planets can I reach? What other undiscovered creatures will I see? Where will my journey take me?
I can’t wait to answer those questions when No Man’s Sky releases on the PS4 & PC.
No comments:
Post a Comment