It's safe to say that we're quite excited about No Man's Sky here at Push Square. After all, we did award it our coveted Best of E3 award. Arguably the most intriguing thing about the game is its vast open world, which by all accounts is preposterously big. However, until a recent interview with Hello Games co-founder Sean Murray, we've only had PR hyperbole on which to base this claim.
Speaking with IGN, Murray said that the title's initial design used a 32-bit number, which meant it would take around 5,000 years to see everything, assuming that you only spent one second on each planet. However, the studio decided to up the ante, and upgraded to a 64-bit number, which means that it will actually take you five billion years to see everything. Splutter.
Suddenly, Dragon Age: Inquisition's 200 hours doesn't seem so impressive. Will you be picking up No Man's Sky when it launches later this year, or have you not got a couple of aeons to spare? Refuel in the comments section below.
[source au.ign.com]
Comments 33
That's amazing it makes gta v look like an ant lol.
How much of that is going to be original, though? That sounds impressive, but if each unique planet is defined by some slight colour swaps, then what's the point?
I wouldn't get too excited yet — procedural generation is gonna result in... very similar planets at some point. Maybe first 100 you visit will be unique and fresh, but the next 101 could be already similar to what you seen. I like the idea and I am curious how they will solve this in a context of exploration though
5 billion years, that's pathetic. I was hoping that this game would last me a lot longer.
@KomrathDE British ingenuity.
Well, you have to keep in mind that procedural content is not the same thing as hand crafted content, because our brains are wired to recognize patterns.
And if there is no pattern that is meaningful to us the social mammals we are (IE we can see some logic to it), then we won't care anyway. There is a reason we don't have procedural music, or purely procedural art or movies.
Unless these things are meaningful, they are in essence, just noise.
When you have seen a red sky, a blue sky and a yellow sky, you will have a pretty good idea of what a green sky would be like.
I am really excited about this project too, the drive for exploration is a deep human trait, but the developers don't have infinite ways of changing the environment in a meaningful way.
Just trying to balance everyones expectations about this.
This game was a factor in my decision to go with the PS4 this generation.
@Oculon I guess it depends on the variables for the space/planet/sun/moons/atmosphere/life and oceans etc, the most complex things in the universe are biological organisms so if they can somehow create a programme to evolve these for each planet in some way then that would be exciting.
5 billion humans buy no mans sky and play it non stop for a year, the world collapses but at least we saw it all.
Not sure about this could feel very generic after awhile, I think I'd prefer a handful of beautifully crafted worlds that are memorable.
I'm very excited by this game I imagine my girlfriend will be as well as she likes dinosaurs and things to do with space...space dinosaurs!
I look at this game in such a way as for example -there are 3000 objects and 30 colours then the computer would just ramdomly generate these in different locations and times or not input some and boom its a different planet, thats my take off how this will work so i imagine it will get boring in a few weeks, like how many times can u change ur pin number before its the same pin number again? But its still only the same 9 numbers you can use and 4 digits u input, just guessn thats what this will be like if you get my meaning.
@Oculon I'm sure they have a structure to their design which will keep us surprised. And the point is to reach "Coruscant," not to compare each detail you see to the last. If we went to our solar system and saw Uranus right after Neptune, we'd say "lazy programming! Another blue gas planet" But then we'd see Earth with intelligent life and oceans and mountains. I'm hoping there'll be monitored diversity among systems, not just random random random
Will I be picking this up? That's a rhetorical question, surely?
I was just sold on the "Fly from planet to planet without any loading screens" It's the type of game I've always wanted. I had hoped that Destiny would be like that but alas.
@charlesnarles they already said 5 billion years
@Oculon But what if you've seen a No Man's Sky?
I'm still not to sure about this game though. Is it space combat and stuff like that or is it just roaming the universe and planets without any cause, I mean, what is it exactly?
Quality over quantity. Still not sure what to expect from this game. It's definitely interesting what they're trying to accomplish with it, but I still feel like we don't know enough about the game to really have an idea how it'll turn out.
This is one 'indie' I am inteterested in for sure. We'll see how this turns out. Hope it's not killed by the hype machine. While the game sounds intetesting (in what little we know about it), it also has bust potential written all over it.
@get2sammyb I was thinking the same thing! When I saw a video on no man's sky you can see a glimps of some of the animals in the game, but it looked very limited for a game of this size!
And also they didn't really say 5 billion years to EVERYTHING it was 5 billion years to see repetition. But I want to know what kind of repetition they're talking about. The one thing I really REALLY want to see is the whole galaxy change over time or something like that. Like events happening because of our effect on the game! That would be amazing!
Just Cause 2 doesn't seem so big by comparison...This may just be worth getting a PS4.
Ok so if I were to travel from one side of that universe to the other, would the side I started on still look the same if I came all the way back?
when did hello games say that it would be this year? last i'd heard, they were withholding any release date info for fear of disappointing people if they had to delay. (probably a smart move in the long run)
Ok this looks really interesting. I like games that you can do epic things. I hope there are missions or goals, factions would be cool too.
@SimonAdebisi well then that just doesn't make sense as a playable experience. I thought each person was supposed to get their own blot of procedurally generated space in the same galaxy, and as you go where others have before you, you see the other players' content while it's still 100% new to you. So it's a kind of race to the galactic core to see what your pro-gen'd core will look like... but say a million people buy it; that's still 5,000 years per person at 1 second per planet? I must not get it.
@charlesnarles it does seem a bit ridiculous, I've no idea how the game works but clearly there's gonna be a lot of stuff that just won't ever be seen, its virtually infinite if you compare it to a human lifetime. Not all bad of course.
People seem to purchase Fifa (and other sports games) and Call of Duty every single year and those games change very little in terms of looks but they sell in the millions. I for one can't wait for No Mans Sky as its a game I've always wanted to play since getting into gaming. I love open world games but the thought of having a whole galaxy to explore just blows my mind. I didn't realise it was coming out this year. I thought it was going to be another 2015 game. I really hope it is out this year!!!
I was excited about playing it, until I heard it wouldn't have third person view.
Why are so many good games first person only?
I'm still slightly apprehensive about whether or not they'll actually manage to pull this off, but alas, I will still buy it.
(I make terrible business -and life- decisions.)
I look forward to exploring this world, regardless on how big it is. I do hope it is as vast as they say
Imagine how good this game would be if it was developed with Sony's new VR tech in mind. That alone would sell another ten million PS4's. It seems like a no brainer to me.
When is the expected release?
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