No Man's Sky

[StrainedEyes]

Arguable the most exciting announcement during the VGX Awards was "No Man's Sky" by Hello Games (Joe Danger). A space exploration game where you can get in your ship, fly out into the atmosphere, and explore any planet.
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Wow. No Man's Sky Just Stole the Show at the VGX

This is No Man's Sky by Hello Games, which brought us Joe Danger. This is something completely different, a sprawling space adventure, as its insane premiere trailer shows.P

The game is entirely procedural in all of the environments it creates, promising unique planetary environments, all of them unexplored. Sean Murray of Hello Games said he wanted to build a game that honored the kind of science fiction he enjoyed in his youth, which weren't just action tableaus but worlds with extremely rich backstories and characters.P


You can see just how full service No Man's Sky will be in pursuit of this, taking you from beneath the water of another planet's ocean into the atmosphere and to space, dogfighting through an asteroid field. Only four people are building this game, and it just handed the rest of the VGX its collective lunch.

If you're curious, the music in the trailer is "Debutante" by 65 Days of Static.

It's the kind of game that I think everyone has imagined would be incredible, and it's really exciting to see someone go for it. There's only 4 people making this thing and it looks like one of the top games to keep an eye out for. t:

 

[Jick]

This might just be the new kind of experience that I need. I'll be looking forward to it.

 

[TX85]

Pretty damn cool concept,Hopefilly the executation is great too

 

[Soapy]

I think it looks really cool, and super ambitious, but the fact that it's only being developed by four people and that a release date and platforms haven't been announced yet makes me think it's going to be a long wait.

 

[TX85]

Yeah there will most likely be delays for a few years,I hope they can eventually get it up in PSN Arcade or XBLA

 

[Tanin]

*shrug* After antisiptaing Spore and all it could do for so long and it being dumbed down.... I just can't get excited about a game so far off with no real anything but a promise.

At least not til more comes out.

 

[jacobed]

Looks interesting but it certainly isn't going to make rethink what next gen can do like they're saying. Most definitely rethink what indie developers can do but not next gen. I don't know I expected more from hearing all the reaction

 

[KevanG]

*shrug* After antisiptaing Spore and all it could do for so long and it being dumbed down.... I just can't get excited about a game so far off with no real anything but a promise.

At least not til more comes out.

I was thinking Spore as well while I was reading it.

 

[ProjectPat2280]

I hope they add animations to getting in and out of your planes. I hate when FP games just have you feeling like a floating camera and not an actual person.

 

[BrollySupersj]

I think it looks really cool, and super ambitious, but the fact that it's only being developed by four people and that a release date and platforms haven't been announced yet makes me think it's going to be a long wait.

I think that goes without saying....a game of such mass, and 4 people behind it?

I don't see this coming out for another 3 years.

 

[the last son]

Graphics look like 360

 

[ProjectPat2280]

Graphics look like 360

Well only 4 dudes with a very limited budget are making the game. Visuals aren't the end all be all, considering the scope they are going for with this game. So its visuals "looking like 360" doesnt matter in the least.

 

[StrainedEyes]

No Man’s Sky got Shahid wet; Sony in talks with dev.

No Man’s Sky was undoubtedly the most interesting game reveal at the VGX Awards 2013. An indie game currently in development at Hello Games, a 4-man studio based in Guildford (UK), it already has seamless transitions between underwater, land and space environments, with players able to explore any mountain you can see on a planet, or any planet around the stars you can spot in the sky, according to Managing Director Sean Murray, who briefly introduced the game in a chat with VGX hosts Geoff Keighley and Joel McHale.

Although the game, which has been described as a sort of MMO with all players participating in the same universe (where everything is procedurally generated), is mainly about exploration, Murray also added that the environment will be “adversarial”, with each planet having a specific ecosystem and not necessarily the players will be at the top of that chain.

The buzz on the Web is skyrocketing for No Man’s Sky and one of the most followed personalities in the gaming industry, Shahid Ahmad (Senior Business Development Manager at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe), publicly voiced his enthusiasm for the game on Twitter:

Rob @retroremakes:
Taking bets that No Man’s Sky is a zillion times more interesting than what Roberts are doing at the cost of many millions.

Shahid Kamal Ahmad @shahidkamal:
@retroremakes it’s the video I was teasing the other day. I practically wet myself watching it.

Shahid Ahmad is mainly known for bringing many indie developers to PlayStation platforms, which is why a fan asked him if they already talked with Hello Games. His reply speaks for itself:

Liam Langan @LiamHangover:
Hey @shahidkamal, I hope you've spoke to @hellogames already , if not please do so!

Shahid Kamal Ahmad @shahidkamal:
@LiamHangover what do YOU think?

There hasn’t been a mention of specific platforms yet, but Geoff Keighley passingly cited “next gen platforms”, so it’s pretty safe to assume that the game will come to PlayStation 4 at least. Not much else is known about the game right now, including the platform on which the gameplay was recorded (although a wild guess could point to PC), or any specifics of the roadmap to release; but I’m betting that we’ll know more soon enough, given this level of interest. Stay tuned.

 

[StrainedEyes]

"A future that has a history": Introducing No Man's Sky

Speaking of power, does a team of just four people (for now, anyway) have the clout to tackle this kind of project? Isn't No Man's Sky too big, too unwieldy?

"Something that's really interesting right now in games is that, in theory, that power can be used not just powering this massive juggernaut that's like traditional retail games with hundreds of people working on Assassin's Creed," argues Murray. "Not just to give them a little extra clout and tweak things slightly and make things look slightly better so we have little video comparisons split down the middle. I guess what we see is an opportunity to use that for a really small team to make something that's really interesting and hopefully really quite different. Take the procedural stuff. There's a tendency to think of procedural as randomness and kind of a mess, but it's really not."

"When we first started working on this, I was always a little bit sceptical about procedural generation," says Duncan, who's been sat nodding along throughout. "Especially as an artist, you always look especially at landscapes, and you think: that doesn't look like it's had the extra love and polish to make something feel like an experience. Procedural stuff is always: I'm walking over a hill. Still walking. Now here's a mountain. Still walking. That's been my fear all along.

"But there's definitely procedural gameplay experiences where you can work out what made something fun, then work backwards and ask what made that happen, and then put that into the system too. It's about making those second-to-second gameplay things happen. You can then plug that into the planets and it creates these situations."

 

[StrainedEyes]

Behind the scenes with Hello Games' No Man's Sky

Still, we need to at least try to define No Man's Sky. Hello Games is being cagey, but here's what we know. There is a universe to explore. Every planet and every star-system in the game is created procedurally, but they all make sense and have ecology. Once they are discovered by one player, they exist for everyone else, and so the act of discovery is also an act of creation. Having said that, according to Murray, players can make significant changes to the places that they visit that endure for everyone else. Make of that what you will.

Players begin the game at the outer perimeter of the universe and are invited to move towards the center, although this is a difficult quest that takes "intelligence, imagination and co-operation," according to Murray.

The universe is a dangerous place, and so there is plenty of combat and peril. It's not just about wandering around looking at the pretty fauna. .

But the desire to go out there and look at the universe is at the center of this game's emotional appeal. Murray was born in Ireland but spent his formative years in the extreme outback of Australia, a hostile and beautiful place, but also one marked by isolation.
...

"Next-gen is empowering us" he said, adding that no decision has been finalized on the particulars of release dates and platform choices. "The new consoles are really good. But most of the games we have seen feel like experiences you could have had with the last generation. They have next-gen graphics but we are more interested in creating next-gen gameplay."

 

[Nathan]

Tell me that there will be a Kaiju Planet, and that the game offers me the ability to build giant death machines.

 

[KevanG]

Well way back in the day the first Mortal Kombat game was only done by four people. Of course that was much more low tech back then. :P

 

[Silvermoth]

This looks amazing! Let me in, I'm hungry

 

[Soapy]

Welp.

That really sucks.

 

[DrCosmic]

That super sucks. Hopefully they have some backups.

 

[Alien Anal]

Gosh that is horrible.

Can someone explain what this procedural business is they keep talking about.

 

[Soapy]

"Procedural generation" essentially means "random", except the randomness is governed by algorithms and rules and logic so the randomized elements make sense and the game isn't spitting out complete nonsense.

 

[jacobed]

That's nuts and horrible. Awesome that they're able to keep a sense of humor though. I hope they are able to get everything worked out

 

[Iceman]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...will-launch-on-console-first-on-playstation-4

Hello Games' breathtaking sci-fi open universe game No Man's Sky will arrive for consoles first on PlayStation 4.Studio leader Sean Murray took the stage during Sony's E3 2014 press conference to make the announcement and reveal more gameplay from the game's procedurally-generated worlds.
Most impressive is the ability to hop from one planet to another with no loading times, from ground to space and back to ground on a different place in the solar system.
Planets are populated by flora and fauna - big, dinosaur-looking creatures, floating jellyfish and beefy rhinos - while space features ship-based combat, with fleets of fighters appearing out of warp.

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Looks awesome so far.

 

[Spade]

This game has looked excellent since its premiere trailer. For an indie dev, Hello Games is doing incredible work here.