No Man's Sky
2026-09-13
Shall we?
2026-09-14
Getting lost in space
I remember reading a thread on Mastodon where the author complained that "No Man's Sky" throws you into its world without any guidance as to what the player should do. That didn't scare me that much because I was kind of looking for something like that. Just throw me into the world on my own. However, this might have changed with -- proudly highlighted on the box -- 9 years of updates. Which is actually 10 years at this point, as the games updates on th e first run. First quests and sidequests are nothing else than a tutorial. So I'm picking up on mining and crafting and other aspects.
Initial character's looks
I thought I would be able to create my character or something but there was no such thing and the game simply loaded with an astronaut-looking character. You cannot even name it. I had different plans but decided to go along with it.
Lemlike
Climatewise, it makes me think of Stanisław Lem's books. It's like Ijon Tichy's adventure.
Lost in space
The plot so far has the astronaut in question waking up with no memory and with a damaged starship. First we fix our means of travelling and then we fly to another planet from which a signal was sent. At this point I am still basically following the quest points. I expect it to end at some point and I will become a space wanderer on my own.
Switch port
"No Man's Sky" for Nintendo Switch was considered an impossible port and I was curious if I'm not stepping into a performance landmine. I watched a review on YouTube, which was somewhat promising, but you never know. Of course, I refused to play demo. For reasons that are not relevant now. The game seems to be working fine. Nothing like 60 FPS but it doesn't stutter nor lag much.
Space is big
What was scaring me was a sheer scale of the world in the game, but for now I am not thinking about it. I am on a single planet at a time and that's it. Be Zen. Be stoic. But it's visually stunning when you fly up and you're suddenly on the orbit of a planet. And then you fly to another one. Or a space station. Which is also big. I think they might produce the right kind of impression of space. Space is unimaginably big. And I can sort of feel it here.
Space station
I landed on my first space station and I had to take a break.
Morphite
The only other game I can compare "No Man's Sky" to is "Morphite", which was much simpler in just about its every aspect. It prepared me for a general gameplay and how to move around, though.
Third-person perspective
A side-observation. In the third-person perspective, our character is not centered but on the left. I think I saw it fully configurable. I remember that "The Talos Principle" had a similar option, to look over the shoulder, but it never sat with me well. And I realised that the robot there was on the right. I'm right-handed and I imagined that I would prefer to have the character on the right as well. It seems that seeing the character's right hand is the crucial thing for my perception.
2026-09-15
Changing the looks, finally
On the space station was a place where I could change my looks. I don't have all the elements available yet but I went through ones that I could use and I built a Daft Punk robot (Guy-Manuel). Then I decided I actually preferred the basic astronaut I started with and I went back and recreated it, though likely in different colours. I had a different idea for myself here, but it's kind of emerging thing. Which I like.
Quests
I'm following the quests that the game throws at me as otherwise I would be lost. But I get along for the experience and immersion. Right now I got stuck on a planet because I ran out of fuel for thrusters and I cannot take off. I had enough but I decided to land again to scan some more animals and plants. And now I need to craft fuel. Amazing. Exactly the kind of game I was after.
"You are free and that's why you're lost."
-- Franz Kafka
First hostile animals
I also got attacked by first animals. They looked like those creatures from "Pitch Black". Although I fought earlier, with sentinels. Turns out the mining laser kills. Kids, be advised.
2026-09-16
Language
Aliens I meet on the way speak to me in strange words. This makes dialogues impossible. I learn single words from various Knowledge Stones and computers, and step by step I begin to understand single words in dialogues. Interesting concept. As is, I rather don't reply anything. I read that it's possible to make enemies like that. I'm alone in the universe and I don't need enemies.
2026-09-17
Space pirates
I got attacked by space pirates.
Pet
I fed an animal on one planet and it started following me. Then it got stuck in the wall and couldn't go anywhere and soon after it disappeared. Maybe for better, because I realised that I started kind of feeling bad for it getting lost, etc. I guess the immersion is strong here. I could also mount it like a horse.
And speaking of animals, I rejected all the missions on a Korvax space station because they wanted me to kill creatures. Nope. Not in my book.
Water
I found a planet with water and it turned out that you can swim in this game too. And there are separate animals and plants underwater. Bastards really thought of everything.
Mining in space
Around the planet I'm currently on is a ring and it's not a mere decoration. No. It consists of asteroids that you can shoot and mine other kinds of minerals, like gold or the one that can be used as fuel for the hyperdrive.
2026-09-18
Lo-fi sci-fi
Switch required some concessions for the game to even work and one of the things that were sacrificed were textures which are of lower resolution here. I know this because I played "DOOM" on both Switch and PC. It could be said that this looks worse, but in case of both games it makes them look VHS-like and this gives me the 1980s sci-fi vibes. And that was the intent behind "No Man's Sky", so a nice coincidence. But I realise it's very specific to me.
2026-09-21
Space SUV
I have a car now. Looks like Toyota SUV with lunar tires and gets me places. Runs on carbon. I don't have a scanner installed, so I need to get out regularly to scan with the exosuit's visor. The vehicle doesn't seem to go much faster but it doesn't get tired. And has much more storage room than the starship. It made the exploration very pleasant.
Ring
I've never been on a planet with a ring, so it's interesting to see it in the game. I never really thought how would such a thing look like. I mean, it's a ring. But still. I never though about it earlier.
Space Anomaly
The main quest pushed me to find the mysterious Anomaly space station. I could see it on the star system map but not when I got there. I flew back and forth, and even took a break from that, until I went back to the quest to reread it. Turned out there was a special option in the starship's menu. And then I saw it. It was pretty cool. A huge, metal, spherical celestial object. But smaller than the Death Star.
Note: I got this one wrong. It turns out that Space Anomaly can be summoned from the starship anywhere, provided there are no physical obstacles in the vicinity.
Water planet
I was wondering if there are planets with water and then I found a planet covered mostly with water and only then some small rock formations. I also saw on the Anomaly that it's possible to build a submarine. And a sailboat. Once I'm done with the main quest, I want to experiment with all these contraptions.
Self-defence
I found a planet with more plants and animals, and there, there were animals attacking me and I had to kill them. In self-defence. I might use it to do that mission from the station, one with killing creatures. A bit of a loophole.
Caves
I also found a lot of really big caves. That was something I was wondering about: is every planet a sort of full ball. It's not. So far, there hasn't been anything like an ancient temple or ruins or even undeground animals.
New gun
I bought a new gun. It looked bigger on the display than in my hands. But switching between them takes time and a couple of clicks through the UI. The first one has all the mining improvements and I'll keep it like that. The new one will be a weapon.
2026-09-22
Ancient ruins
With a help of a giant monolith -- sci-fi as hell -- I found ruins that I had to dig out. First three keys, then the final chest. Inside was something I can sell at a moderate profit. Then, as I was flying over the planet surface, I found another ruins on my own. They were exactly the same as the first one, so the joy of discovery was a bit smaller. Oh well. It's still impressive what they achieved with generating the whole place procedurally.
Exploration first
What I like is that there's not that much fighting. Some sentinels sometimes, space pirates, and aggressive animals so far. This makes the whole journey more like an exploration than anything else.
2026-09-28
Apollo
After getting far in the Artemis quest, I was introduced to Apollo. Very classical.
Standing
But to get there, I needed to raise my standing with Korvax and the game suggested taking a mission on a space station. I took, among others, two about killing creatures. It was framed as thinning the herd. Ecologically sound. And creatures I killed, but I observed that I felt uncomfortable about it. There you have it: fake animals on a fake planet in a fake universe, and I feel bad about it. Now, killing pirates is a different story. This i will do gladly.
The standing, by the way, can be raised without missions. You learn the language from the Knowledge Stones. Which is something I want to do anyway. But it's the game's way of making me try all the things in it. Quite smart, because I can forego this completely and play my way, which should be fine for replayers.
Base staff
I built two terminals in my base and had to hire one Gek and one Korvax. The third race will be yet another station, I'm guessing.
2026-09-29
Planetary bottom
I learned there is a certain type of ground that you can't dig through. The bottom floor of each planet. I was curious if it was possible to get to the core of planets. Now I know. I guess I would burn at some point. But well, maybe they'll add it in one of future updates. Like many other things. Apparently you can fly to the stars now, which was not possible before this month. So. Anything's on the table if you ask me.