Because I know everyone was waiting for this, and because no one has heard anything about this quiet little sleeper of a game already, right?
I'm going to spoil the story and endings to this game. I'm not going to bother with spoiler tags, because none of the story matters, but if you want to avoid it, stop reading now.
I set out to write a very detailed review, but many many people have already done a much better job than I could. Go watch Angry Joe's video, it's entertaining and he pretty much nails every point I was going to make. So rather than talk about how much the inventory sucks, about how this is just a stock basic survival game, about how combat is pointless and dull and how every planet in this 'endless universe of possibility' is just the exact same shit with different colored bars for you to manage, I instead want to talk about the ending.
WHAT THE FUCK?!
There are two main storyline paths that you can follow in the game. The path of Atlas, and the path of following Nana and Pop-pop. I may have gotten the last two names wrong, but it's what I called them throughout the game.
The path of Atlas takes you away from the center of the galaxy, to mysterious 'atlas interface' stations, where a giant red orb (the mascot of the game) talks to you through space telepathy to get you to do its bidding. It also gives you random orbs that will take up a slot in your very limited inventory, and you will need all of them to complete the path, so I hope you don't go selling one since it never tells you what they're for.
The other path leads you towards the center of the galaxy, with the mysterious aliens called Nada and Polo are urging you to travel to the center of the galaxy, acting through agents that seem disinterested in their mission to provide you with the tech and clues you need on your journey.
Both paths eventually lead you to the center, even though the atlas path is going away, you end up taking shortcuts through black holes to make the trip there.
So what does it all mean?
As you play, you pick up hints and clues (maybe, everything is random, this game is basically a rogue-like bolted onto a survival game with a side of walking simulator thrown in... basically every indie trope that exists thrown in a pot) that the universe may not be what it seems. You find ancient monoliths with cryptic messages, and technology that reacts to you. Sometimes obviously meant for a different species, but sometimes reacting to you directly, as if you've been here before. You also meet Atlas, the God of the universe you live in, because the universe is actually a simulation. Atlas is the creator of the simulation, itself built by minds it knows not, using the sentinels to maintain the order, and hoping that you will help it to keep expanding the infinite simulation.
Nada and Polo, aside from you, seem to be the only ones to know that the universe isn't real. They are seeding you with the knowledge and technology needed to reach the center and escape, or at least that's what they think the center allows. They don't seem to really know.
By following Atlas, visiting the 10 Atlas Interface stations and collecting the 10 Atlas stones (which each take up an entire slot in your ever shrinking inventory) you will be given the option of creating a new star, complete with new worlds around it. You don't get to visit this star, you never get told even where it is, but a future player will start on it, so there's that. You can take some satisfaction that your actions lead to... nothing, really. It's just another random planet like every other random planet, and neither they nor you will ever know they were on it.
But what lays at the center? Is it the release from this simulation? Is it answers to the purpose of all this? Is it exciting and emergent gameplay that will make all of the grinding monotony before it worth it?
Nope. You don't even get to see yourself go there. As soon as you hit warp, the camera pulls out, masturbating itself as it shows you the vast universe that you inhabit and all the stars inside it, and when the galaxy is zoomed out enough to be only a single point of light, the camera turns to a new point of light, and zooms in, telling you a new galaxy is discovered and starting you right back at the screen you got when you first started playing, staring up at an alien world from your crashed ship. Congrats, you have a whole new galaxy to explore now, and it's exactly like the first, even with the exact same static alien npcs and the exact same Atlas and Nada and Polo, they don't even comment that you've done this all before, acting as if its the first time they've met you.
And this is the big secret behind No Man's Sky. Those monoliths with cryptic messages were written by you, in a previous exploration. You end the same way you started, and the same way you'll end, implying you've been on an endless cycle. There's no multiplayer because everyone is playing the same being, the lone mind stuck in this simulation and forever traveling to the center to try and escape, only to start it all over again, and again, and again. Basically, what I'm saying is that this is secretly an existential horror game, and Atlas is the AI after the Singularity.
FUUUUUUUCK YOUUUUU.
I'm going to spoil the story and endings to this game. I'm not going to bother with spoiler tags, because none of the story matters, but if you want to avoid it, stop reading now.
I set out to write a very detailed review, but many many people have already done a much better job than I could. Go watch Angry Joe's video, it's entertaining and he pretty much nails every point I was going to make. So rather than talk about how much the inventory sucks, about how this is just a stock basic survival game, about how combat is pointless and dull and how every planet in this 'endless universe of possibility' is just the exact same shit with different colored bars for you to manage, I instead want to talk about the ending.
WHAT THE FUCK?!
There are two main storyline paths that you can follow in the game. The path of Atlas, and the path of following Nana and Pop-pop. I may have gotten the last two names wrong, but it's what I called them throughout the game.
The path of Atlas takes you away from the center of the galaxy, to mysterious 'atlas interface' stations, where a giant red orb (the mascot of the game) talks to you through space telepathy to get you to do its bidding. It also gives you random orbs that will take up a slot in your very limited inventory, and you will need all of them to complete the path, so I hope you don't go selling one since it never tells you what they're for.
The other path leads you towards the center of the galaxy, with the mysterious aliens called Nada and Polo are urging you to travel to the center of the galaxy, acting through agents that seem disinterested in their mission to provide you with the tech and clues you need on your journey.
Both paths eventually lead you to the center, even though the atlas path is going away, you end up taking shortcuts through black holes to make the trip there.
So what does it all mean?
As you play, you pick up hints and clues (maybe, everything is random, this game is basically a rogue-like bolted onto a survival game with a side of walking simulator thrown in... basically every indie trope that exists thrown in a pot) that the universe may not be what it seems. You find ancient monoliths with cryptic messages, and technology that reacts to you. Sometimes obviously meant for a different species, but sometimes reacting to you directly, as if you've been here before. You also meet Atlas, the God of the universe you live in, because the universe is actually a simulation. Atlas is the creator of the simulation, itself built by minds it knows not, using the sentinels to maintain the order, and hoping that you will help it to keep expanding the infinite simulation.
Nada and Polo, aside from you, seem to be the only ones to know that the universe isn't real. They are seeding you with the knowledge and technology needed to reach the center and escape, or at least that's what they think the center allows. They don't seem to really know.
By following Atlas, visiting the 10 Atlas Interface stations and collecting the 10 Atlas stones (which each take up an entire slot in your ever shrinking inventory) you will be given the option of creating a new star, complete with new worlds around it. You don't get to visit this star, you never get told even where it is, but a future player will start on it, so there's that. You can take some satisfaction that your actions lead to... nothing, really. It's just another random planet like every other random planet, and neither they nor you will ever know they were on it.
But what lays at the center? Is it the release from this simulation? Is it answers to the purpose of all this? Is it exciting and emergent gameplay that will make all of the grinding monotony before it worth it?
Nope. You don't even get to see yourself go there. As soon as you hit warp, the camera pulls out, masturbating itself as it shows you the vast universe that you inhabit and all the stars inside it, and when the galaxy is zoomed out enough to be only a single point of light, the camera turns to a new point of light, and zooms in, telling you a new galaxy is discovered and starting you right back at the screen you got when you first started playing, staring up at an alien world from your crashed ship. Congrats, you have a whole new galaxy to explore now, and it's exactly like the first, even with the exact same static alien npcs and the exact same Atlas and Nada and Polo, they don't even comment that you've done this all before, acting as if its the first time they've met you.
And this is the big secret behind No Man's Sky. Those monoliths with cryptic messages were written by you, in a previous exploration. You end the same way you started, and the same way you'll end, implying you've been on an endless cycle. There's no multiplayer because everyone is playing the same being, the lone mind stuck in this simulation and forever traveling to the center to try and escape, only to start it all over again, and again, and again. Basically, what I'm saying is that this is secretly an existential horror game, and Atlas is the AI after the Singularity.
FUUUUUUUCK YOUUUUU.
