No Man's Sky

No Man's Sky is a space exploration game created by Hello Games. The game has a huge, procedurally generated Universe, which means when you go to a new world, you really are the first person seeing it.

I surprised Jordan by telling him we had to get a PS4 to play this game. I did not get any argument. I was set up to start playing on the day the game was released. I am still playing. As of late October, 2020, I've put in about 2,400 hours. I can play through the migraine if I close my eyes at well-known points with flashing lights, and take the rest in small chunks of time, with breaks. While I've played more than most, there are people who've played much more.

Hello Games keeps it fresh by adding new (free) content on a regular basis. After a rocky start, where a lot of people really hated the game, it has gotten better, with a much better reception. The latest release is getting rave reviews. For the record, I loved the initial game.

When I started a new active save of the game not that long ago, I started taking notes, because the game had changed so radically. This turned into the Reddit set of guides to Things I Wish I Knew When Starting NMS. There are a lot of guides now, so I had to create an index to everything, with links to every guide. I've been surprised by the widespread positive response I've gotten.

That "new" active save just crossed the 500 hour mark (October 2020). The other active save is my Day One game, still going, with almost 1,400 hours of play. I play as a xenobiologist, out to survey new worlds, cataloging animal, plant, and mineral species. Living worlds can have from 1 to 13 (or more) animal species, and there's a bonus for finding and scanning every one. The Day One save counts more than 100 worlds where I've found all the animals, since the last, long ago, reset.

It's a big Universe, with many stories of the Deep Dark!