For many of us, we still don’t really know what No Man’s Sky is about. We know we have massive galaxies to explore, creatures to find and possibly hunt and minerals to mine but hardly anyone outside the dev team seems to know how this all slots together to form a game. Sure, we have seen lovely show reels and interviews with the team at Hello Games but we still know relatively little about this eagerly anticipated game. Are we putting too much faith in No Man’s Sky’s promise of the unknown?

Let’s first talk about gameplay. Through the recent interviews with Sean Murray about No Man’s Sky and what you can do in No Man’s Sky, the main goal of the game (if there really is one) is to get to the middle of the galaxy which you are in. That’s it, no fancy ‘you must kill the Eternal Monster of Legend’ or ‘become the universe’s greatest hunter’, just get to the centre and something will happen. Now already, a hundred questions pop up around just getting to that goal, which according to Sean, does not end the game but gives you more options in exploring the universe. However, what I find more pressing is the fact we are yet to see the fundamental parts of the game, like crafting weapons and ships or combat on display.

From interviews and trailers that have been released about the game, the game seems to progressing well, but we have yet to see an in game menu or even a map of your in game galaxy. Again, we have seen lovely trailers of the game in action but all of the footage seems so tightly choreographed as to not really show what the game’s about. We’ve seen someone discover a planet and land on it, but the animation seems so smooth that it could be an automated process. We have been told a lot about the ‘possibilities’ of what you can do in No Man’s Sky, like be a botanist or wildlife photographer besides the usual explorer or space pirate malarkey, but we are still yet to see any of this in action. So far, we have just seen fly throughs of planets and lovely vistas which we can find in a sci fi movie.

I want to believe the hype, but the secrecy and lack of information around the game is making it hard to.

 What I want to see is an hour of pure gameplay, of someone starting on a planet to making their first ship, to actually see what the game is like to play, rather than just looking at some pretty CG deserts. This desire has mostly come about due to how much hype has been generated by fans and websites rather than Hello Games themselves, building up No Man’s Sky to be this almost messianic game which will bring gaming into the light. I just want to see how it plays live so I can dispel any of this false hype and actually see what the game is. The ambiguity of the game’s release doesn’t help, as we don’t have a guide of how far the game is in its development cycle. Sony seems to be hyping the game up like it’s coming out very soon, yet Hello Games aren’t really discussing it as of yet, so we are in limbo as to whether the game is far along in development, close to release, only half way done and so on, causing more ridiculous speculation as to when the game is even coming out.

This is where my main fear comes when seeing anything to do with No Man’s Sky comes from. We are still yet to see a person, with a gamepad in their hands, actually do a live demonstration of the game. We’ve heard about demos and seen these lovely choreographed trailers but the public still have yet to see a person just playing the game. I hope this will change but for the frenzied praise coming from fans and media outlets, combined with a lack of live gameplay footage, I’m quite suspicious of how development of the game is actually going and whether the game has been completely crippled by its own ambition and the enormous among of hype behind it.

Don’t get me wrong, I am really excited for No Man’s Sky but so far, I am quite worried about how little we actually know about the game really. As a famous poster once said, I want to believe but the lack of concrete information on this game is making it very hard to. By all means, if anyone at Hello Games is reading this, I desperately want you to prove me wrong. I will gladly come down and play for hours on end but until you show off live gameplay footage and start giving the public solid information on the game, I fear the game will be crushed by the ridiculous hype surrounding it.