[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLtmEjqzg7M]
There’s a new game developer that people need to be aware of! Say hello to Hello Games! They are in the midst of creating a game called No Man’s Sky. This game is supposedly going to be massive. I’m talking an uncountable number of worlds to explore, no one ever really likely to start on the same planet kind of massive. Watch the video above and take a good look at all that brightly colored fauna, odd looking animals, and even space combat.
They have a website all about it, found here, that states No Man’s Sky is ‘a game about exploration and survival in an infinite procedurally generated universe.’ Each world will be unique in its own way, with different, equally unique, fauna, animals, and scenery. The information you gather on one planet can be shared with other players, which is nice, but is not the main attraction. This game is unique. It offers a open universe type game play. You can choose to attempt to uncover every species on a planet, discover every ocean and landmark, fight intergalactic space battles, find ancient artifacts, or just go around collecting resources from planet to planet as a scavenger to improve your space suit, craft, and gear. The latter statement does mean that this game is in a way a survival game. There will be an emphasis on gathering resources from planets to help make your character and his/her gear and spacecraft better. This makes the game more challenging, but does not in any way damper my excitement.
This game excites me for three reasons – one, I am absolutely in love with the scale they are talking about here. To know that I may be the first person to ever discover a certain planet or species is incredibly exciting. Two, Hello Games is a small company and I am always interested in watching and helping small gaming companies succeed. What they propose is innovative and the gaming industry is in desperate need of new, innovative, and unique games. My third reason blends into my first, exploration! The sheer amount of exploration to do in No Man’s Sky is remarkable. If this game makes it to the market, I would be impossible to get a hold of for months. I would be too busy shooting down rival space explorers and discovering vividly colored fauna to have a life. Hello Games offers gamers the opportunity to have an ever expanding universe waiting for them every time they turn on their console.
Check out this other short video of No Man’s Sky to help get yourself as excited as I am for this game.
Hello Games itself is a very small developing and gaming company located in the UK. Sean Murray is the founder of Hello Games and describes the game as ‘science fiction.’ That’s easily supported by the game play trailers, because what is the definition of science fiction if it isn’t exploring new, imaginative things, in this case places, using advanced, futuristic science? The word procedural gets tossed around a lot while describing this game, and I think it’s important to know what that means in the terms of gaming. Procedural here means that the game will generate planets, fauna, animals, space battles, everything, within certain parameters. Because of these parameters the game is not randomly generated, but there is still an infinite possibility as to what the gamer might find. Even Murray states that he could play the game and find something new and unique he has never seen before. No Man’s Sky could really bring a whole new dimension to gaming. Unfortunately, the release date for this game is still to be announced, but it is definitely worth keeping an eye on!
I’ll leave you with a twelve minute interview with Sean Murray about No Man’s Sky. Enjoy!
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