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Watch: Why I'm not sticking with No Man's Sky

I can't Gek on with it.

It feels strange to say it so soon after launch, but I think I'm about done with No Man's Sky. On paper it's very much my kind of game - I'm a big Elite: Dangerous fan and very much enjoy bimbling around in open world games - but there's simply something about the experience of playing No Man's Sky that rings hollow.

I've been doing a fair bit of thinking about this and I'm convinced the reason for the flat gameplay experience lies somewhere between procedural generation and emergent gameplay - specifically that No Man's Sky has shedloads of the former and almost none of the latter.

Cover image for YouTube videoWhere did No Man's Sky go wrong?

The video above explains what I mean in greater detail, with reference to other games that use procedural generation to far greater effect. Sad as I am to say it, I feel like I've less reached a journey milestone in No Man's Sky and more reached journey's end.