No Man's Sky was plagued by early hype and an awful launch; it would have fared better if Hello Games had simply called it an early release until the Foundation or Atlas Rises update. But that's in the past now, and the studio's worked feverishly hard on the game with several major updates, and minor fixes being released almost weekly. NMS is almost worthy of the hype now, and more's still to come. It isn't for everyone, and it never will be. There's a new and well-written story now featuring memorable characters and a much more satisfying conclusion than it had at launch, but against the backdrop of literally quintillions of world any story will just be a small part of the experience. There's a base building system and freighter ships to buy, there are faction quests and a reputation meter, there's the constant chase for new and better equipment, and the freedom to play the game as anything from a pacifist researcher to a bloodthirsty pirate, but against the galactic scale those things also fade to insignificance. And that's really the point of the game. Again and again the dialogue confronts you with the question of whether meaning can exist in an infinite universe, and challenges you to find it. There's little in the way of an endgame: the conclusion of each story thread leads to the same ultimate goal, which is to explore as many planets as you like. It's always about seeing what's waiting over the next horizon. It isn't a perfect experience. The early grind can be exhausting, and it takes hours to collect enough resources to never have to worry about grinding again. There are maybe a dozen types of planets altogether and you'll come across countless similar worlds with only minor differences in the sky or weather. But there are also moments that can never happen twice: flying among a pod of sky whales, or diving into an alien sea, or being chased through a rainswept forest by frenzied sentinel drones. Those are the experiences that make the game worthwhile.
