No Man’s Sky Game Review

[section_title title=Audio and Graphics]

Audio and Graphics

The Galaxy view looks amazing, there are an amazing number of stars, easily numbering trillions. It is the highlight of the game, the vastness of space and you a mere spec amongst it. Navigating this map was always going to be difficult, and it takes some getting used to the twitchy system that is more at home on a controller than a mouse.

Moving closer we have solar systems, here the game starts to creak a little. Planets and moons look different within any given system. After a few systems you begin to see the repeated textures though. Space stations seem to come from a limited pool of fixed models. With each interior having an identical landing area, the door on the right is always locked, the left is always to the exchange.

Finally, we get to the planets themselves, the procedural crown jewel in No Man’s Sky. This is where the game fractures into varying levels of good or bad. Walking across a wild planet with animals running away from you is amazing to look at and walk through. But the level of detail (LOD) is so low that it feels like planets have a tiny box of atmosphere and then a low quality backdrop. In valleys and caves this isn’t too bad, however as soon as you look from a hill you can see the grass just end far short of where it should.

Due to how the planets are generated you can get a poor run of deserted ones with nothing but minerals, bland featureless rock everywhere. This was the case for the first 10 hours after launching off my starting planet. I found precisely one animal and a few bushes here and there. Then after a large jump I was getting ocean planets teeming with life and the 60’s sci-fi style just worked.