No Man's Sky - NEXT Reviews
Despite its updates, No Man's Sky remains the same experience that it was at launch — just a better-realized version of it. The first five planets of your No Man's Sky experience will be glorious. The rest may leave you wanting more.
On "normal" mode, No Man's Sky describes itself as a chill experience, which is accurate. For the most part, when the planet or the plants or animals aren't trying to kill you, it's a relaxing away-team simulator for 1-4 players. Constantly having to replenish resources and manage your inventory can become tedious, but the wonder and fun experiences can make up for it.
No Man's Sky: Next can be impressive at times. It is dense with features and the sensation of lift off and breaking/entering a planet's atmosphere is genuinely magical. It is a mixed bag of mostly good things, but has some really low lows. Sean Murray's project brings the age old saying of "Art is never finished, it is simply abandoned." Good on him and the crew at Hello Games to continue to support what was a disaster at launch to what is a pretty good, if a bit simplistic space sim. "Art" may never be "finished," but when art is shown to an audience... that is going to be the first impression and the first impression is the most lasting. Next does have room for improvement; getting caught in invisible geometry and weird graphical anomalies does happen frequently and the scope of the setting still is not even half the level shown in pre-release gameplay footage. No Man's Sky: Next proves that space does not have to be a lonely town.
While this is a substantially improved experience, it is still No Man's Sky. And while this is, more or less, No Man's Sky as we were always promised it would be, the core conceit, structure, and gameplay loop haven't changed. There's just more to them than before.
No Man's Sky NEXT is certainly a massive step-up from what it was two years ago. With the addition of online multiplayer, base-building and some graphical tweaks it offers quite a bit to keep players busy for hours on end. While it does have a few flaws, No Man's Sky is still a unique and enjoyable game.
A solid set of enhancements brings NEXT ever closer to the game No Man's Sky wants to be but forgets to have fun in the process.
No Man's Sky is tough to recommend because it doesn't nearly have mass appeal. It's a grueling game for far too long and even after that its loop is still too freeform for most players. For the right kind of player, however, it can be an exciting adventure filled with memorable moments and a real sense of discovery.
NEXT is the step forward that No Man's Sky needed since it was made available two years ago, the online options as well as the third person perspective are both well received additions, however, completely redefining the procedural system of the game is a very difficult task that, in the end, makes it aim for a particular type of player.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The updates have brought definite improvement, but even after two years the huge scope and ambition only serves to hide how simplistic and repetitive the gameplay is.
Flying from planet to planet in search of the universe's rarest materials and technologies in No Man's Sky NEXT scratches an exploratory itch. It still carries a lot of caveats: It's mechanically repetitive no matter what planet you're on, the dull combat should be avoided whenever possible, and bugs are plentiful. But buying new ships and building new things is enough motivation to make it entrancing – for a while, at least.
A virtual space explorer's dream and an easy going player's inventory management nightmare, No Man's Sky is an ambitious intergalactic sandbox survival game with narrative that opens your eyes to a philosophical view as to why we exist and how we can choose how we walk our path on this journey.
No Man's Sky has received many noticeable improvements over the course of the past 2 years but the NEXT update is perhaps the most significant one. Sadly, it still has some dated design with the need for the constant grind and a lack of rational narrative that holds back an otherwise enjoyable exploration and survival game.
Two years after its initial release, No Man's Sky have developed into a whole different game. Tons of new contents, several updates and patches for the online section, more features for crafting system, new missions, and much, much more added features have made NMS a valuable title.
Review in Persian | Read full review
With Next, No Man's Sky grows exponentially and lays the foundation for what may be a future further growth in content.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Overall, No Man's Sky Next is a huge improvement over the original game because there are new features and better visuals for you to look at. It's worth playing the game if you still own a copy of it and want to download the free update. However, the game can still be boring at times and I don't think it does enough to entice new players to give it a try.
No Man's Sky Next Xbox One/X is still a riveting yet flawed experience
Overall this game to this day is still throwing curve balls at my opinions, and I’ve only just scratched the surface of this update. The whole experience as a whole has been a blast and I cannot wait to get back onto No Man’s Sky and experience more of what this update has in store… Saying this, there are still many updates that will be needed to form No Man’s Sky into the game we were originally promised, but, for now, this is the perfect time to hop on back and start a new journey as a Wanderer, finding the center of the universe and all it’s mysteries.
As before No Man's Sky is a game that I enjoyed the most when I was moving under my own steam, plodding along as a leisurely place. The NEXT update brings a lot of great new features to the game and as a result it now feels more complete than it ever has. It is also the perfect time to release the game on Xbox to a new audience that may not have yet had the chance to play it.