I’m one of those weird people that liked the game from the very beginning, and I’ve bought it at least twice for myself (different systems). I played it like 50 hours at the start. I always wanted a simple, procedurally generated space exploration game.

They’ve done an incredible job fleshing out the universe, giving us new things we can build, simple city management for people that want that, and the same exploration system for those that wanted that.

It was sold as, is, and will always be a sandbox game with some simple, procedurally generated “missions” to get you going to the next point of interest or having the next, relatively low-stakes fight.

And that’s okay. People play Animal Crossing and Minecraft. People can play this. Some of us are happy to. Some of us see a $50 game and say “yeah, 50-100 hours of time in this is my money’s worth”. And some of us spend 3000 hours in the game because we love the creating and sandbox feel of it.

Some people like Farming Simulator 2020 - I’ll never understand it and it’s not for me, but plenty of people do. Some people like Powerwash Simulator.

It’s okay if No Man’s Sky wasn’t the *specific* game you were hoping for and if it hasn’t become it; but that doesn’t make it a bad game, it just makes it “not for you”.

I wish these threads weren’t always filled with people complaining about a game that wasn’t made for them. It’s been a decade. It’s time to move on.

I feel like NMS is definitely catered to people who prefer to define their own way of having fun. There’s practically zero hand-holding. There isn’t much emphasis on narrative either, and the story is almost completely optional. It’s more about finding your own game within the game, where simply existing and exploring such a vast universe can be the whole point.

In that sense, I’d argue it’s almost more of an environment simulator than a traditional game. I can totally see why someone coming into it expecting a strong narrative, memorable characters, and lots of character development might end up disappointed.

For me, though, this is the game I keep coming back to. There’s just nothing quite like heading into a world that nobody has ever visited, with a pretty good chance that nobody else will ever visit it, and still leaving your little mark there.