The art is cool and unique, but unfortunately the actual gameplay is very monotonous.
You will find more of the same with an obvious graphical upgrade. If you hated how its heavy-handed plot made real roleplaying impossible, guess what, that's back too! I should have known better. The one good think I can say about this game is you can take all your clothes off, which is amusing at least.
There are a few things I could gripe about. But I finished it after about a month of intense play, ~200 hours, and then started again. What more can you ask for? Yeah, some parts don't quite have the same level of polish that the base game does, but that's to be expected since they didn't have 10 years to polish it. In short, even if it's a little rougher, it's more Factorio. If you love Factorio, what are you waiting for?
I'm gonna give this an optimistic 2 stars, because I'm sure it's got some good parts, but the horrible save system just killed it for me. I just wanted to feel the game out and get started at my own pace, not play the same scenes over and over! I know, it's console port, so it's kinda expected, but this is much worse than the usual. The unforgivable part is this game pretends to let you save, but when you load it, you really just get sent back to the last checkpoint anyway. I'm told that you can really save if certain conditions are met, but how can I trust this system it when it "saves" even when/where you're not allowed to?
The "redemption arc" meme was appealing. But I have to put that aside and judge this game as it exists today. Regardless of what a disaster it may have been at the start and how far it's come, it's just not very good, even in 2024. It's a big empty universe, with nothing interesting to do. And it's buggy too. Not terribly, nothing I couldn't overlook in a better game, but it just adds to the disappointment. What really pushed me over the edge was how it handles mods. While other games in need of content are happy to lean on modding and are often saved by it. No Man's Sky only grudgingly allows mods and shows you an obnoxious warning every time you launch it with any installed. I have to conclude there's really no hope for this game. You might be able to kill a day or two half-enjoyably on it, but save your money for something better I say.
GG doesn't like it when I mention technical problem (I guess they prefer to hide those), but that's OK! I won't mention anything about that! Suffice it to say this game was not good or enjoyable or possessed of any redeeming qualities.
I agree that the claim of being DRM-free is a little weaker than some, but to be fair, you only need an account to access services hosted by the developer. i.e. those things which they put additional ongoing expenses into. Namely the mod portal and multiplayer matchmaking. And you can still "side-load" mods and connect to friends directly without using any of that. As for the game itself, it isn't for everyone, but if you like brainy automation games there's a good chance you'll love this. I think it's fair to call it genre-defining.
This game has signs of potential, but it's been in early access for ages, and still feels extremely rough. In particular the controls and UI for interacting with the world are over-complicated and clunky. It's also worth noting that it's a dying simulator, success is not an option. I'm not exactly sure why anyone would want that, but if you do, I'm sure you could find a better one, at least until this is finished.
My computer is not amazing, but meets the recommendations, and it used to run this fine. But after upgrading to the latest version and installing the expansion packs, performance is noticeably worse. Had to turn the graphics down to make it playable again. Not sure if it's the version change or the expansions that did it since I installed both at once, but needless to say, it's disappointing. The concept behind the game is great, but it doesn't feel like recent development has been up to the same standard.
