Hello Games’ Sean Murray has said that the overall purpose of No Man’s Sky is not about reaching the centre of the universe, but rather, the sense of freedom and wonder one has while exploring the game.
Speaking in an interview with GameReactor, Murray noted that the objective of reaching the centre of the universe was something the press picked up early on, but the team never saw this as the main point of the space exploration title.
“We originally had that in mind for No Man’s Sky and when press were on it we said ‘well you could try to reach the centre of the universe’, but we personally never saw that as the point of the game,” Murray said. “But a certain set of gaming and media press, and also some gamers, that made them just feel a lot better, they were like oh there is a goal, okay that’s fine then, but actually for us we didn’t set out to make the perfect game, like maybe through updates and stuff we can approach that, but we didn’t set out to do that. We didn’t set out to make the game that you could play forever, again maybe in two years’ time, after we’ve updated it loads it will feel closer to that.
“What we did set out to do, for just one moment you play the game, you land on a planet and you feel embedded there, that this is a real place. It’s something you’ve discovered for yourself and you have a moment of wonder, and for me that is unique to games that we can do that and I think totally justifies the game. The game doesn’t need to do anything else than that and I would be happy.”
No Man’s Sky is available now for PlayStation 4 in the U.S. and U.K, and turns up on PC tomorrow. The game has already seen considerable interest among gamers, with over 10 million new species logged in just 24 hours of going on sale.
Set in a sprawling open-world, No Man’s Sky allows gamers to travel to distant, uncharted planets and discover new life, sharing them with other players by uploading their findings to the universal Atlas system.
The game features a mind-bending 18 quintillion planets to explore, a feat which cannot be achieved unless you happen to have five billion years spare. As such, Hello Games has said that over 99 percent of No Man’s Sky’s planets will never be visited by players.
Just got started with No Man’s Sky? Then check out some further reading below, including some handy No Man’s Sky guide links and more.