The No Man’s Sky reviews are out, and the verdict for one of the most-hyped games of the year is in: The game is an incredible technical marvel filled with wondrous beauty and something of a mess of a game underneath, without enough variety or progression in gameplay. And the reviews aren’t wrong, but there’s a problem with the No Man’s Sky reviews. The reviewers (with the odd exception) didn’t play the game as it’s meant to be played.
The Problem With No Man’s Sky Reviews
No Man’s Sky is designed to be a “very, very chill game,” says creator Sean Murray. This was obvious even from the first trailers, which emphasized flying around and slow exploration far more than combat or the survival mechanics. No Man’s Sky isn’t designed to be a game you rush through and play for hours on end, day after day; it’s supposed to be a relaxing experience. Sit back with a beer and explore a solar system or two in No Man’s Sky, then carry on another time.
But, of course, that’s not how reviewers are actually playing the game. By nature, reviews need to come out quickly, and because there weren’t review copies for No Man’s Sky until the day before the game came out, reviewers had to rush through it. Indeed, they would have had to, almost regardless of the situation. Here’s how most reviewers and most journalists covering the game (self included) played No Man’s Sky: We stayed home from work and played for eight or ten hours at a stretch, repeated two or three times. We tore through every nook in the early game, hit as many planets as we could, searched frantically for secrets and alien words, and got as far as we could in the game.
That is so not the way to play No Man’s Sky. Rushing through the game takes off all its sheen and sense of wonder. The problems in the game are real, but they are less apparent if you play for an hour or two at a time rather than try to marathon it. Granted, many players are marathoning it themselves, out of sheer excitement, and they’re running into the same issues. And it’s not fair to say that they’re playing the game wrong; they aren’t. But all of us would enjoy No Man’s Sky for what it is a little more than we do now if we just slowed down—took our time, worried less about racing ahead, and experienced the wonder.
