No Man’s Sky
I have regrettably failed to truly dive into the exquisite depth that No Man’s Sky has become in the years since its 2016 release. But that’s never stopped this game from occupying a special place in my gaming life, and space on my storage mediums. When NMS first hit PS4 nearly seven years ago, I was perfectly content with what that debut experience was—and sometimes I mourn the loss of its more simple identity.
Read More: 10 Meh Games That Became Killer With Updates
No Man’s Sky lets me just simply exist in a limitless galaxy, surfing the stars, traveling from planet to planet, resisting the call to use my pulse engines in favor of entering a planet at the very edge of its atmosphere and simply coasting to a location it tells me will take hours to reach.
I appreciate every addition the game has received, and I’m happy for those who’ve gotten the game they always wanted out of this space sim. But being able to just drift in the cosmos is…well, it hits that very part of the brain that Carl Sagan spoke so endearingly of in his life:
The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us—there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.
Being able to occupy that, whenever I want, makes No Man’s Sky essential.
