No Man's Sky - NEXT Reviews
No Man's Sky has come a long way from that humbling start for Hello Games. There could still be improvements to some gameplay systems and the user interface, but overall this is a greatly improved package that's brand new for most Xbox One gamers and well worth going back to for PC and PS4 players who dropped it shortly after launch.
Meanwhile, significantly expanded galaxy sandbox with interesting concept, but some gameplay lengths.
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For some, the grind is worth it so they can explore the infinite. For others, the grind itself is the infinite.
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.
An astounding achievement. Hello Games deserve credit for creating one of the best games of this console generation - even if it did take a couple of years longer than planned!
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.
I envy anyone out there experiencing No Man's Sky for the first time this month.
I have no idea what it would be like to explore an alien planet with a toxic atmosphere in real life, but No Man's Sky sells itself with a sense of authenticity that I really have no choice but to believe that this is what it would feel like to take one small step for man.
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.
Despite all of my qualms, everything seems to fade away each time I warp to a new system or enter an uncharted planet's atmosphere. If you felt the original No Man's Sky had promising ideas but ultimately let you down, NEXT is the perfect time to jump back in. No Man's Sky and its NEXT expansion prove that there is equal parts excitement, dread, and anxiety in exploring the unknowns of space.
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.
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 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.
No Man's Sky has reached a point where not only does it meet initial promises, it now exceeds them.
With Next, No Man's Sky blossoms into the game that was promised.
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.
If you're new to the game it's going to take a lot of time to get past the surface scratching, but once you've caught up there's plenty to love. And if you're coming back to No Man's Sky, things have changed quite a bit, but embrace it and explore with much more of a reason to.