No Man's Sky is finally out, but only on the PS4; here's everything you need to know

It’s been a long wait, but finally, No Man’s Sky is here. The game is only out on PS4 at the moment with a PC release scheduled for 12 August.

I don’t have a PS4 myself and the wait until this Friday is going to be murderous, but we of the PCMasterRace are hardy and we will endure. The actual release of the game has answered one important question that has been nagging at the back of my mind though.

What actually is No Man’s Sky?

This is the most important question that, until today, had no clear answer. I already knew that the game featured an algorithmically generated universe with trillions upon trillions of planets to explore, that we’d encounter alien life, space ships, space stations, space pirates, asteroids and much more.

There were also hints that we’d have to make our way to the centre of the universe and that the centre held some great secret. Trailers revealed robots, alien monoliths and much more.

As it turns out, No Man’s Sky is all of that and more. I’d rather not spoil the story for anyone waiting on the PC release, but if you’re curious, there are live streams aplenty on Twitch and YouTube.

In terms of mechanics, No Man’s Sky is a survival game. You spawn into a universe that was created at the moment you started a new game. You appear to have crashed on a planet and have limited resources at your disposal. Your immediate goal is to harvest resources, repair your ship and get the hell out of there! But there’s still more; it’s not just the ship that needs repairing.

The game requires you to be on a constant lookout for fuel, resources for your suit, materials for upgrade and much more.

Crafty

There’s a lot of crafting involved in the game. You’ll need to upgrade ship components, acquire better weapons, engines, etc. All of these can be crafted either ‘intuitively’ with recipes that are already available, or you’ll need to purchase these recipes from somewhere, or maybe even ‘acquire’ them by other means.

Fly anywhere

Another welcome mechanic is that you can literally fly anywhere you feel like. Literally point your ship at any random point in space and just fly there, it’s that simple. You’ll always find something new, a planet, a space station and maybe even a space pirate. As the developers themselves put it, even they don’t know what’s in the final game.

Do anything

You’re given the freedom to do anything you want in No Man’s Sky. Take on a space station, pirate a hapless trader, kill all the animals, mine a planet to the core, etc. You make your own story.

Survive the odds

What’s the point of survival if you’re not dying? If you die in No Man’s Sky, you’ll respawn at the last checkpoint and will have the option to collect all the resources that you would have dropped at the time you died.

There’s a still a lot more to No Man’s Sky than what I’ve listed out here. But revealing anymore would spoil too much.

If you’re still waiting on the game’s release, check out Out There: Omega edition on Steam , iOS and Android . It’s thematically similar to No Man’s Sky, except that it’s in 2D and more of a rogue-like than anything else. It should keep you busy till the PC version comes out at least.