The Legacy of No Man’s Sky in Game Design
Two years ago, No Man’s Sky, a sci-fi space exploration game boasting powerful procedural generation, released to a flurry of negative reviews and angry, disappointed gamers. Recently, an update to the game, with the moniker “NEXT” was released, featuring a slew of gameplay and content updates. Gaming reviewers are revisiting the strange and colorful world Hello Games have crafted, with many changing their opinion of the title. No Man’s Sky broke records in the number of negative views released in its initial launch, but recently the overall score of the game has moved from a “Mostly Negative” to a “Mixed” number of positive versus negative reviews in the Steam marketplace.
So, what happened? Was it really a failure at launch? Is it a perfect game now? What can game designers, gamers, or science fiction fans learn from this multi-year legacy? It turns out there are many takeaways game designers can learn from Hello Games and their lofty goal of creating an “infinite procedurally generated universe” for players to explore. Some of them are more obvious, like the dangers of over-promising and the snowball effect that hype can produce for gamer expectations. There are more interesting lessons that can applied to future game design endeavors, though — including the extreme difficulty of creating a true science fiction experience — not just a sci-fi action game. No Man’s Sky also handily proves that although an infinite universe is excellent for exploration, it is no substitute for a professional level designer’s meticulously crafted areas, nor can it suffice for a lack of engaging gameplay elements.
Let’s start from the beginning. The core concepts and themes of the game. There were a few targets I believe the designers were aiming for. The story, the exploration, and the gigantic setting revolve around something that was all but negated in the past few updates to the game — the concept of insignificance.
The problem with using the science fiction concept of “insignificance” as a theme in a game seems obvious in hindsight — the actions of the player can feel insignificant.
In the immortal words of Douglas Adams, “space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space.” This is a common concept in science fiction. The universe is so massive that it can swallow you up — and no one will notice. The largest war in human history could not be seen from the moon. The stars do not concern themselves with our plight, no matter how incredible. Science fiction storytelling is perhaps better equipped than any other medium to project a feeling of humble, or even small, on a reader or viewer. The problem with using the science fiction concept of “insignificance” as a theme in a game seems obvious in hindsight — the actions of the player can feel insignificant. In the early days of No Man’s Sky, you could not leave much of a mark on any area you encountered, aside from naming it and naming the species that exist on that planet or moon. No base building, no terrain modification, and zero possible interaction with other players. Players were alone in the universe. An infinite universe was out there, waiting to be explored, but it was all a little meaningless.
This may be a slight spoiler to some, so skip this paragraph if that’s important to you: the end of No Man’s Sky’s journey finds the player launching into another galaxy — removing almost all previous progress. Nothing is accomplished, no one is saved, and very little has been learned. The player’s actions are rendered moot. The player is small. Insignificant. Frankly, as a game designer, I think this is absolutely fantastic. It is brazen and a little bit ridiculous. It is something new and mostly untried. As a gamer, though — it is not much fun to feel empty, or to feel small. The updates to the game have made the enormous universe of No Man’s Sky feel less suffocatingly huge— you can now teleport from one planet to another very easily; you can build bases and terraform the area around you, leaving a lasting impression; and most importantly, you can play with other people. Loneliness is no longer a required feeling for the No Man’s Sky player to experience.
I believe that avid science fiction fans and gamers who value exploration and discovery above other gameplay elements were able to find a really excellent experience in No Man’s Sky. Many other players, however, expected something a bit more traditional. Space combat is interesting, but hardly the complex level that space sims like Elite: Dangerous can provide. The ground based combat will not compare to any other triple-A action game or shooter on the market. There are some interesting weapons, but the commonly simple (sometimes very flat) landscapes do not promote tight gunplay, even though sprinting from a six legged velociraptor or a swarm of planet protecting robots can be pretty stress inducing, its simply not the focus of the game. Updates to the game have greatly improved these battles, particularly by adding in more interesting random landscapes and different game modes with varying difficulty, but the focus of the game is still squarely on exploration, which can be exciting for many players, but not every player.
The updates continue to improve the procedural generation, but one thing keeps standing in the way of creating an infinite universe that is actually interesting to explore — the human brain. Humans are adept at finding patterns. Even though there might be an infinite number of possibilities made from a thousand different assets for any planet, animal, or plant, players will start seeing those building blocks fairly quickly. Any elements that are not randomized and appear on multiple planets — especially ones that are not useful to the player — stick out like annoying sore thumbs. Big red crystals that provide the only form of fuel for your starship make sense, but seeing the same fan-shaped flora over and over, even on opposite ends of the galaxy, lessen the experience of finding brand new worlds. A fresh sighting of a walking squid is lessened when the player notices that the stubby arms on the squid monster are the same stubby arms from their previous discovery of a five tailed lizard. “NEXT” has improved this dramatically, but the height of plants and animals was usually pretty small. Even though a player might encounter plenty of unique wildlife, they were all usually around the same tallness. Now, the player might find a forest of 50 foot tall mushrooms, or a grassy Earth-like field — variety in scale is decidedly meaningful.
Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem of sameness that can occur in randomly generated content — make lots and lots of really cool content that is okay to be duplicated. Obviously the idea of cool is subjective, but I think we can all agree that the oddball objects in the image below are objectively cool:
Not every player will encounter these weird objects, but it is possible that different explorers can find places full of these things. Some of the most interesting assets included in the most recent version of No Man’s Sky can be found in so-called “exotic” planets or moons. Players might find themselves in the middle of fields full of hexagon shaped metallic flowers or in beneath a sky full of soapy bubbles. These are not completely random events, but they are gaming experiences worth seeking out. Randomly generated content is not enough — it needs to be interesting content. Even if something does not directly affect gameplay, like fuel or health or home bases (space stations in No Man’s Sky), it is okay for it be recognizable, as long as it is worthwhile to the player. In a randomly generated dungeon crawler, a few well crafted puzzles will resonate with the player better than a couple dozen randomly generated “find the button” puzzles.
Randomly generated content is not enough — it needs to be interesting content.
We can’t talk about No Man’s Sky without talking about hype. In the days before release, Hello Games co-founder Sean Murray may have realized that it was impossible for No Man’s Sky to live up to player expectations. He tried to warn buyers that the game was not a title meant for multiplayer — but it was not specific enough. Expectations were not tempered. Players were disappointed when they could not see fellow explorers even if they were in the same spot in the galaxy. The desire to surprise players shouldn’t result in a lack of communication. Laying out a publicly visible roadmap of features being developed and their expected release times is infinitely better than releasing a game that is missing features or still has features in development — especially if they have been on display in the past. I do not believe that Hello Games intended to lie about content or release something unfinished — I think they just did not expect all of these features to take so long to produce. Enough has been written elsewhere about feature creep so I won’t dive into what happened there, but it’s a curse that can affect even the most experienced development team.
Games titled “early access” might not have the best reputation, but they are a great option for accurately managing player expectations. A two year delay in the release time would have been great for No Man’s Sky, but it’s almost always not realistically possible for a development team to delay games forever. It’s not even guaranteed to be a good idea — more development time does not always equal a better experience. The important part is managing player expectations. Even in the early access world, a complete experience should be given to the player. Building features on top of the core game, and communicating this with the player base, is a significantly better path than releasing an unfinished product.
No Man’s Sky, even from the first trailer, has nailed atmosphere extremely well. Every planet or moon will each have their own color scheme that can be seen in the vegetation, the sky, and even the water sometimes. Randomized environment assets very rarely look out of place because everything sticks to a planet-wide color scheme, and everything adheres to a particular No Man’s Sky art style. Themed levels are not anything new in game design, but they are done expertly well in No Man’s Sky. Adding to the atmosphere is the sound design. Lasers sound like lasers, thrusters sound like thrusters, and alien gibberish sounds like alien gibberish, but the real hero here is the music. 65daysofstatic has crafted a soundtrack that is so perfectly fitting to No Man’s Sky that it is hard to imagine the game without it. Space battles feel more intense, new planets seem stranger, the all-knowing, humongous talking shapes from the storyline appear more epic, and even entering simple space stations feels immensely more exciting because of the (usually) accurately timed swells and instrumental flourishes.
The world feels bigger because the player is required to take an extra bit of time to move from one place to another.
The soundtrack can help to keep even the slower parts of the game interesting — and those slower parts have an interesting purpose, too. I will likely never argue that grinding materials is a good way to spend your game time, but I am going to argue that travel time is an important, often overlooked, piece in many “open world” (open universe?) titles. Removing the opportunity to instantly teleport via a two-dimensional map can give the game world scale. The world feels bigger because the player is required to take an extra bit of time to move from one place to another. Travel time can easily become annoying, of course — if we were required to walk everywhere in massive games like Skyrim, it would likely become very draining, although we would hopefully gain a new appreciation for the environmental design. I recall waiting upwards of 10 minutes for a boat to arrive in Final Fantasy XI, just to move from one area to the next. It did grant a sense of scale, but forced wait times are not the best use of a player’s time. No Man’s Sky offers the perfect middle ground. The player has access to multiple levels of speed, and whether it is zooming from one planet to the next, or running on foot from one mission target to the another, the travel time is usually around one minute. This extra bit of time spent moving through the world instead of just teleporting makes everything in the game world feel larger and a bit more purposeful than just pretty backgrounds. It feels like you can actually go to any mountain or moon you see in the distance. Teleporting there would not result in the same level of appreciation, although allowing the building of teleportion devices (portals) to already discovered lands is still a very welcome addition.
The most important takeaway from the legacy of No Man’s Sky is perhaps how powerful and absolutely vital a strong core game concept can be. The premise of unlimited exploration inside a universe that resembles the covers of science fiction novels of yesteryear is an excellent platform to build upon. Base building, ground vehicles, improved asset variety, and multiplayer all build upon that foundation. Without a strong core concept, these features could just be meaningless additions. Instead, the legacy of No Man’s Sky gives credence to the idea that, given enough time, an excellent game design idea is worth pouring time and effort into — even when it appears woefully unfinished — even when reviewers and players are initially less than impressed. Relying on faith in your vision and following through to create a complete experience can, just maybe, translate to an amazing and memorable player experience.
My criticisms might seem harsh, but I personally adore No Man’s Sky, even when it was initially released. The tutorial still feels messy, there can be quite a bit of grinding for materials, and some user interface elements feel needlessly hidden away. Despite that, it has become a much more accessible title now; but this game is still not for everyone. For a great many space pilots, avid explorers, or science fiction fanatics who are okay with feeling a little small, the technical marvel that is No Man’s Sky can provide a multitude of unique and unforgettable moments. For that, it should be counted as a success in game design history.
