Hugely ambitious and exciting title, No Man’s Sky, has just released a new trailer revealing in game footage, and boy oh boy does it look good. For those who have been floating about in the infinite cosmos for the past year, and have no idea what it’s all about, No Man’s Sky is a procedurally generated, space exploration title, set to smash gaming as we know it out of the water.
A relatively fresh team of developers, famed for their other titles, the Joe Danger series, Hello Games have quickly found themselves gaining timed exclusivity with Playstation 4, and the attention of thousands of gamers world-wide. With promises of an entire procedural galaxy so large that we may never truly hope to explore it all in one life time, and an amazing way of tackling this style of development with their own unique engine, No Man’s Sky could either be too good to be true, or the answer to so many peoples space exploration prayers.
In the trailer below, we see seamless flight between planets’ atmosphere and the dark beyond, indigenous creatures that boggle the mind and strange warp gates that for some reason, you just want to walk through.
Many may notice that parts of the landscape and decor seem to pop into existence as they are approached, but this shows that we truly are looking at game footage. It’s everyone dream to see a game that can handle that much detail so quickly, but even the biggest AAA titles have issues with their LOD (level of detail). No Man’s Sky is vastly impressive, even with these little peeks behind the skin of the engine, and when you consider the fact that the entire planet is being generated in front of you on the fly, it is more than excusable to see a few textures or models phasing into our view.
As development continues, we will just have to keep watching those Skys to see whether Hello Games can deliver us the expansive universe we are all hoping for.