I listed No Man’s Sky as one of the games I was most intrigued by heading into E3. We’d heard so much about this game and what it hopes to be, but we’ve been teased and lied to with trailers in the past. Scope is important because you can make a game look bigger in a condensed trailer with selective footage. Throw in some buzz terms and suddenly the hype meter goes into overdrive, and you could definitely say that happened to No Man’s Sky after last year’s E3 reveal.

I planned to see it behind closed doors at E3 2015 in the hope of seeing a little more of what developer Hello Games was promising, and I certainly got that. Fortunately, I walked away convinced that No Man’s Sky is exactly what Sony says it is: a big (biiiiiiiig) procedurally-generated universe waiting to be explored.

You’ll start on a random planet with a random ship. Your planet can be thriving with vegetation and life, or lay barren and riddled with harsh landscapes. The goal, quite simply, is to explore. Hello Games founder Sean Murray says the intention was never to create a combat game: it was always about the possibilities of having the capacity to explore the outer reaches of the universe. What would you do if you had that power? You’d probably want to planet hop, mine, trade and maybe even research. If you really wanted to, you could just travel for years and years until you reach the centre of the galaxy, the game’s proxy “end goal”.

The game’s look is distinct and quite striking, which is quite far removed from the contemporary sci-fi game’s obsession with bleak, depressing landscapes.

We’d been told many times that you could do all of this, but it had never really been demonstrated. I haven’t seen the game played for an extended period of time, but I have seen it played in a completely spontaneous way without any real knowing of what sort of planet they’ll land on. One second the character was on a beautiful, lively alien world, then next it was on a smoggy, dark and depressing planet a few hundred light years away. The game’s look is distinct and quite striking, which is quite far removed from the contemporary sci-fi game’s obsession with bleak, depressing landscapes.

Murray’s insistence that the game’s about exploration is exemplified in its naming system. If you find a planet, you can name it whatever you want (although there will of course be a filter for naughty words). I intend to go all-out with Gaetano-1 through Gaetano-99. Once you find a planet, animal or plant, you’ll need to “claim” it, which can be done by uploading it to the network to make it official. If you name a planet and die before uploading it, all discoveries you made since your last upload will revert back to their original names. Obviously the intention here is to encourage the community to actively contribute to this ever-growing universe.

But the best part of No Man’s Sky -- its hyperdrive-fuelled planet-hopping -- isn’t even available to you when you first start the game: you’ll need to improve your ship and add a hyperdrive before you can explore the world. There’s a rich yet intimidating crafting system, which relies on materials you’ll mine on the worlds you visit. Anything in pure atomic form, for example, can be used to upgrade your ship and get things off the ground. I do wonder, however, what would happen if your planet doesn’t have the necessary resources to build certain ship upgrades. It really is just a roll of the dice according to Hello Games.

Certainly one of the most talked about and intriguing elements of the No Man’s Sky experience is that everyone is connected in the game world, but I’m not even sure that it’s what the Hello Games team wants everyone to talk about. That connectivity is there to add an element of human interactivity to what is quite literally an infinitely-sized game universe, because there’s every chance you won’t bump in to another player without actively trying to reach them. That element of exploration, discovery, mining: it’s really all about your own experience in a universe shared with others. I’m not sure that it’s cooperative or competitive in any sense. They could very well add elements that are, but Murray’s rhetoric suggested otherwise: he seems very intent on keeping the game grounded in its exploration roots.

What I can’t wait to hear about now is the universe’s more hostile elements: blackholes, aggressive factions, dying planets and stars. These are all part of the natural universe, and so if No Man’s Sky universe is to abide by the same laws, you’d have to expect that there would be roadblocks along the way on your journey to the center of the galaxy.

Slowly but surely, we’re starting to see Hello Games’ vision come to fruition: it really is what they say it is, as outrageous as No Man’s Sky sounds. There are some facts about the game that are truly mind blowing -- particularly the game’s scope -- and the idea about complete randomness while you explore these newly generated worlds adds an element of mystery that would only drive me further into the universe. Not only did I leave E3 more intrigued by No Man’s Sky. I left floating among the stars knowing it’s exactly what it says it is.

http://mmgn.com/ps4/articles--is-no-man-s-sky-what-it-says-it-is-or-are-we

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CAN'T. CONTAIN. HYPE.

From what I understand there PVP in the game too. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm cautiously optimistic for this. It could end up being revolutionary. Or it could end up being the biggest and most extravagant bore ever created.

They've repeatedly said that while that's technically true, if that's your expectation you'll probably be disappointed.

I think coop and pvp are the same thing in this game. You can play together with someone or turn around and shoot them.

If I go through a Black Hole in No Man's Sky I expect to learn about "love" once inside, otherwise the game won't be believable.

I'm guessing that's a reference i'm not getting.

I wonder what black holes will do in No Man's Sky... like, will it destroy/kill you from distance, or will you'll be able to "enter' it?

Also curious about how stars will work. If we get close will our starship burn and explode?

Yes. I won't spoil anything in case you stumble accross whatever I am talking about, if some day you do, you'll remember this thread.

I'm pretty sure none of the things mentioned in the title were actually confirmed here. They were all mentioned but seemed more like wishful thinking - of the author's, not the developers'.

Going by physics, it will rip you apart into subatomic particles in well under a second.

You could get closer to a supermassive black hole, which are found in the centre of galaxies. You will never escape, but while descending, you will see all kinds of strange stuff, like the whole universe concentrating at one point for example. You will not see the singularity however. It's too small. Well, yeah, and in the end, you will always die. There is no escaping from a black hole. I hope it's that way in the game too. While I know that not everything can be physically correct and still entertaining (otherwise you would need at least 8 years of gametime to travel between two stars) I want the most basic physics to be there. Like gravity, atmospheres and their influence, magnetic fields and so on.