Is No Man's Sky Worth Playing In 2025
Talking about how No Man's Sky has changed, if it's worth it, and why its a great example of complexity vs depth.
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Why are some game systems deep and engaging while some just feel overly complex? Is No Man’s Sky worth playing in 2025? This is a question that is close to my heart. I’ve owned No Man’s Sky since its launch in 2016. I bought it a second time during the multiplayer update. I also just started playing it again for the first time in years with my girlfriend (Happy one year anniversary)!
What is No Man’s Sky?
For the uninitiated, No Man’s Sky is known for being gaming’s most public false advertising disaster. Scholars will most likely call that moment “A real shit show.” The game was revealed with a dazzling launch trailer. I watched with my jaw agape as it touted lush alien forests, giant alien dinosaurs, and complex pirate AI. NMS also hinted at multiplayer with multiple ships flying with the player in formation.
Myself and the internet contracted a serious case of hype. Like in Jaws, people’s imaginations ran wild with what they couldn’t see. No Man’s Sky’s lack of detail made it the perfect canvas for our imaginations.
Buffing the hype was prophet Sean Murray. A man who’s mere presence caused journalists to drop to their knees. Sean Murray preferred the title Lead Designer, but he represented how a small studio could go from Joe Danger to the biggest hit of all time. After the internet exploded, prophet Sean descended from the clouds promising everything the fans wanted to hear.
Whether or not these features were on the dev roadmap is a secret only the developers know. What we do know is that fans were ravenous for the game that was promised. A game that only existed in their imaginations. Upon reaching the end of the yellow brick road in 2016 I found nothing more than Sean Murray hiding in a box pretending to be the Wizard of Oz.
Sean Murray, and Hello Games’ reputation was completely destroyed and No Man’s Sky became a joke, an example of lack of detail making something seem like more than it was. Coining the phrase: This is just another No Man’s Sky.
No Man’s Sky’s Legacy
Sean and his developers were not about to let their legacy lie in the emerald city. They sought to sanctify their screw-up. A vow was made to continue to update the game, meet everyone’s expectations, and to do it totally for free.
Days stretched into months. Months stretched into years.
It’s now the year of our lord 2025.
Is No Man’s Sky Worth Playing in 2025?
Yes….. Kinda.
I recall my experience on launch. Hopeful and bright-eyed that I had avoided the sensational snowball. I was ready to start my coming of age in a new universe.
I searched vast planets, experienced strange creatures, and dealt with strange elements. I spent my first couple hours in awe. I enjoyed the chill atmosphere of exploration and tolerated all the clunky menus and crafting.
However, the experience grew hollow. Absent of Aliens, and missing multiplayer the experience tested my patience.
OOhs and Ahhs became ughs as each planet began to blend with the last. The experience grew tiresome, and I laid the game to rest.
This children, was not the end of the story.
After many years,
Dread Pirate Sean handed over the title he inherited from Peter Molyneux to the creators of The Day Before in search of his true love.
The only words he ever spoke were, “As you wish.”
The game’s new MMO style multiplayer hub is a great addition to make the vast universe less lonely.
The planet generation is greatly improved with more variety especially as you venture closer to the galaxy’s center. Huge scary creatures, and small cute ones. Elemental gas giants, and space battles.
Search abandoned and crashed spaceships, run your own starfleet command, and manage colonies on habitable planets.
There is such a large, staggering amount of variety in the game it’s been overwhelming for me to step back into.
I’ve also been playing the game with my girlfriend. It’s been challenging to “play cooperatively” as we get farther into the game because the events you do become more tailored to solo players. For example I helped her clear out a settlement in need of help. I kneeled as her knight while she accepted the throne. I was then promptly removed from town because towns can only have one player owner at a time.
It’s cool that we get to exist at the same time and build bases together, but the game necessitates a lot of solo exploration. Many missions and crafts require resources that, early game, you are unable to transfer. Therefore you must set out on your own to acquire them.
These nine years have been very productive for Hello Games. No one can dispute that. What shocks me just as much as all the new features are the elements that have stayed the same.
The game’s UI at launch was extremely clunky due to the cursor, plus the press and hold to click on elements. The crafting system is a pain to use, and many of the menus make locating the information you want very difficult.
Hello Games has done a good job of adding additional menus in order to make life easier; however, I still find the majority of the menus hinder my enjoyment.
Overly Complex Crafting System
No Man’s Sky’s crafting system has always been an example of the difference between complexity and depth. “Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle.”
Credit where credit is due. The crafting has been revamped since launch; however, I feel the process needs improvement.
What is the difference between depth and complexity? Complexity is a function of how many options there are. It can be expressed as a simple formula C=ux.
Depth in a system is harder to explain, but it can be thought of the unique ways that crafting elements combine with each other at multiple levels.
A great visual example is the Borromean Rings
The Borromean Rings are three interlinking rings in which the removal of any one ring would reveal the other two aren’t connected. The trick is that their combination creates a solid system.
Another way to think of depth is to think of crochet or knitting. The act of doing a single crochet is complex, the depth is combining techniques and creativity to create something unique. If you just did a long chain of crochets you would have completed a complex task, but all you’d have is a long useless chain of string.
The next part of depth in a system is called the Feedback Loop. A feedback loop is simply the way in which a system drives you forward (or backward) to make things easier as you go. In a game like Factorio, the creation simple coal powered production lines gives you the resources to set up electric infrastructure which in turn allows you to produce even more resources. The creation of one system allows for the improvement of the entire system itself.
Many of No Man’s Sky’s crafting elements feel more like the chain than something that interconnects. Di-hydrogen is used for starship fuel, sodium is used for atmospheric protection, oxygen is used for health. These elements are found in the same form on every planet. Collecting them doesn’t make getting them next time any easier. This does start to change later, but the difference appears to be minimal.
Even more frustrating is the way that crafting products are made. Say I need to craft something to repair my ship that requires di-hydrogen, and a metal plate. The metal plate is crafted by combining 50 carbon into a plate. The issue is that they must be crafted in the clunky menu system… by hand… every time. There’s no machine that does that for you where you can just grab some. You do eventually get a mining drill which I assume helps you gather resources. But that dang menu gets in the way every time.
Other games like terraria solve this problem by crafting all the intermediate components needed with one click of the higher tier item. No man’s sky doesn’t do this.
To give some credit there is a menu which shows you all the crafting steps for an item. This menu allows you to craft each intermediate item right there. This menu, also gets annoying and repetitive simply because of how many times you need to access it.
I’m crafting starship fuel canisters constantly. Every time! Everrry Tiiime! I have to craft a metal plate then craft the full item.
“Why not just mass craft metal plates?” The answer is simple. There are so many items in No Man’s Sky with just one purpose, or none at all! Inventory space is not based on weight, but how many different items you have in your inventory. Therefore it is encouraged to keep your resources in their simplest forms. Meaning you shouldn’t stockpile intermediate resources because you’re saving all that other space for useless items.
This is ultimately what I mean when I say the system is overly complex but lacks depth.
I’d like everyone to pause for a moment and take a deep breath.
Iiiiinnnnnn……. Oooooouuuuuuttttt….. Ok good.
Lets finish off with some more positives and some final notes.
The fleet command stuff looks very cool though I admittedly haven’t gotten that far.
The base building is fun, but is a tad bit superfluous in a game that is more about exploration of an infinite number of planets. How do you pick one to call home?
The one system that does actually feed into itself is the colony management sim which I really like. I just wish you could do that in co-op.
Exploring planets and getting rewards for that is cool.
The game’s limited time community events are fun and unique ways to see more of the solar system.
No Man’s Sky has a high level of customizability for your character. You can make it as easy or as challenging as you’d like.
The tutorial is actually very good, but does get confusing as you get farther into a character. Additionally you find yourself land-locked for a considerable amount of time in the early game, and even later because starship launch fuel is such a limited resource. This has always felt like a weird limitation for a game about space exploration.
Conclusion
If No Man’s Sky piques your interest there has never been a better time to get the game and try it out! There are many caveats and a lot of issues to deal with, but I think there is a really solid MMO style exploration game here that isn’t worth missing out on if you’re interested. If you’re not interested you’ll probably find the game feels like a tourism simulator with extra steps. Either way I hope this article helped you to decide if No Man’s Sky is something you want to grab. Thank you for reading.
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