Biggest Bummers In No Man's Sky

The promises made by No Man's Sky have been as huge as the game's collection of 18 quintillion planets. With Hello Games setting the bar so high, there are naturally many small details that have left players disappointed. Many of these issues may be addressed in future patches, but the game seems to be struggling to keep up with everything players have demanded of it. Here are a few disappointments we've found in No Man's Sky.

One big part of the game's pitch was that every player would be exploring in the same universe. And despite the universe being crazy huge, two players could defy the odds and run into one another. Sadly, the game doesn't seem to be delivering — there have already been at least a dozen instances of players being at the exact same place, at the exact same time, and not being able to see one another. Hello Games has not answered players' requests for answers, though there are two main theories: either these encounters are influenced by time dilation and these players are technically not there at the same moment, or Hello Games didn't actually expect anyone to meet and they'll be adding that feature in later. Either way, we're currently very, very alone, and if we wanted that feeling, we'd go explore our real universe.

...except we're not that alone, because players are already running into star systems, planets, and animals that have already been claimed and discovered. Over 10 million species were discovered in the game's first day alone. So, while you can see other players' data trails, and be robbed of the thrill of discovery (not to mention the reward money that comes with it), you still can't directly interact with anyone. Something in the algorithm didn't account for so many players signing up, so while it's interesting to see what others have already named, and the paths they've taken, it doesn't really help your own advancement in any way. Somehow, there's still not enough space. Also, seeing planet "Dave Wuz Here" kinda spoils the game's mystique.

No Man's Sky is mostly a survival game. When you start out, you're pretty much a mess with a broken ship, and it's up to you to fix it. For some players, it's relatively simple, because they randomly start on a paradise planet. For others, running through acid rain to scoop up a morsel of plutonium before hiding in a cave is the norm. It can take a really long time just to get away from your starting point, and while that makes for a great narrative, some players find the pace of starting off far too slow, and have abandoned the game already. If you're seeking instant gratification or seeing crazy animals right out of the gate, you'll be disappointed.

Every planet you encounter will be different, but that doesn't mean that they won't feel the same. By the time you run into your twelfth species that looks like a bouncing pineapple, you realize that the game's algorithms might make a huge number of things, but they're still finite. There are definitely creatures out there that you've never seen before, and probably never will, but it makes us wish that some of these exotic animals weren't based so clearly on Earth animals. We're ready to have our minds blown with sentient, vicious membranes with a single wing and a sassy monocle. Instead, it's another deer with a fish tail.

There's a lot of sameness on planets as well, not to mention safeness. Every planet has a surface to land on, and some amount of common natural resources that you can mine so you can get back off the planet. The game always provides you with a way out, but what if it didn't? Right now, No Man's Sky is a very friendly, beautiful sandbox, but it's ultimately non-threatening.

While there's been no talk of a truly dangerous survival mode, a la Far Cry Primal's insane permadeath patch, we can't help but think that some players would really love some brutality instead of the current pillow fight. You may find yourself drawn to terror planets drowning in white-hot lava over sunny utopias after awhile, just to keep things interesting.

The largest obstacle of the game isn't angry predators or getting lost — it's not having enough pockets. One of your main motivations is to upgrade your exosuit and your spaceship enough to carry lots of junk, whether it's tech upgrades, minerals, or rare items. Everything takes up a slot, whether it's 500 units of gold, or a single, tiny bead. It makes managing your inventory and resources a chore. Want to build that warp reactor? Too bad — you're carrying three small eggs, so there's no room. It's one of the more nonsensical aspects of an otherwise satisfyingly realistic game.

Players have found a bug that enables them to put more than one egg in a basket, but don't expect it to last. Anticipate freighters in the future...but also expect to become a popular target for salty space pirates.

Currently, there's no way to clearly revisit your favorite planets and systems unless you have Rain Man powers and remember exactly where they are in the complicated 3D space map. There's no mechanism to drop a pin into previous locations, and no coordinate system to help you navigate — you just point yourself in a direction and hit the hyperdrive, and the "previous system" function seems to work inconsistently, based on user comments.

The future promises the ability to build bases, so rediscovering a very specific location would be critical to that. A smarter coordinate system hasn't been mentioned, but there's no way that it's not happening. For now, you can probably forget about going back to that planet with all of the vortex cubes.

No Man's Sky is addicting and fun, but it is not a flawless game. PS4 users can expect daily crashes, which are fortunately mitigated by frequent autosave points, and PC users have been experiencing a launch nightmare. Sometimes, your ship launch will overfire and send you into deep space instead of just lifting you off the planet's surface, or it'll just wedge you into a spire of rock for a few minutes before you finally glitch yourself free. Patches will surely address stability and collision issues, but it's been a rough start, overall. We expected the game to fill our days with joy, not with crashes.