No Man’s Sky

Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch, Windows (Steam Deck OK)
Buy it from: Amazon | Best Buy | Humble Bundle
Current goal: Touch some alien grass and maybe some water too

I won’t claim to be an OG, but I’ve been on No Man’s Sky’s side since the very beginning. I believed in it so much I picked up a steelbook on PS4, which I almost never do. Since then, No Man’s Sky and I have had a very on-and-off relationship, though we’re largely off. I played a lot at the outset, but the game quickly collapsed under the series of promises it failed to live up to at launch. It was still ambitious and I got some degree of joy out of it, but it wasn’t quite what I signed up for and so we parted ways.

I’ve taken, instead, to admiring it from afar and watching it grow and mature without me in the years since. I’ve cheered it on through numerous of its updates, and even flirted with the possibility of coming back numerous times. The “Atlas Rises” update in particular, which added a whole new story to No Man’s Sky, was very enticing, but I stayed away for a bit longer. It wasn’t till the “Next” update that I booted the game back up, since it finally introduced proper multiplayer and overhauled the game to be much closer to the vision of it I’d always had. Even then though, I played for a short while and fell off because time didn’t really allow for much else. Despite our distance, I’ve been happy for No Man’s Sky and all the steps it’s taken to better itself over the years

Most recently, an update to No Man’s Sky refreshed the universe, and now it has cool water technologyamong a host of other advancements. Thanks to that update, as well as a general itch for a sci-fi multiplayer exploration game, I think we’ve been apart long enough, and I’m feeling the urge to come crawling back. — Moises Taveras