No Fear of a Blank Planet

I think I've finally figured out what's missing from No Man's Sky: danger.

It's supposedly a survival game, but there's very little threat. Aggressive animals are, in my experience, very uncommon. The sentinels will, by and large, leave you alone unless provoked. Hazardous environments can be easily negated by digging a shelter with a few grenades. Resources to replenish your defences and weapons are plentiful.

Last night, for the first time in several months - maybe a year - I played The Last of Us, picking up a playthrough on Grounded difficulty. It took three attempts to figure out all the controls; I'd forgotten how to stealth-kill, how to run and how to switch weapons.

I'm at the point of the game, for reference, where Ellie first gets a gun. (I don't think that's too much of a spoiler.)

It was immediately and unrelentingly tense. On Grounded, in addition to deadlier enemies and reduced resources you lose the "hearing" ability that allows Joel to track enemies without direct line of sight. If I couldn't see a threat, I didn't know where it was - but even when I did have a specific target in mind, moving around could expose me.

Obviously a crafted experience like The Last of Us has ways of turning up the tension that a procedural game never could - like specific placement of cover and planned enemy patrol routes.

But even after several varied but grisly demises, when I knew the exact layout and patterns of the whole space, it didn't get less stressful - it almost felt more dangerous, as the pressure was put entirely on me to remember and execute the plan in the right order.

No Man's Sky, a universe of nearly infinite variety, feels inert in comparison.

How does the vast, uninhabited unknown so completely fail to inspire any sense of danger? I'm an explorer, striking out into frontier worlds devoid of civilisation (though always, disappointingly, inhabited).

Stepping out of my ship's cockpit should be a gamble. What I find should have the chance to offer more than a temporary inconvenience every few minutes where I have to dig a hole or refuel my shield.

I want to stand on a beautiful, vast and unknown planet, utterly alone and scared out of my mind about what I might discover.

No Man's Delay

In every interview about, or demo of, No Man's Sky that I've seen, lead developer Sean Murray looks terrified.

Nobody in the world is more worried that this astonishingly ambitious game might not live up to the hype. He is nervous and proud and desperate for people to love Hello Games' next release as much as he does.

I have no doubt that he wants (needs?) No Man's Sky to be as close to perfect as humanly possible, if for no other reason than to justify the hype that's been poured onto the team since E3 2013.

So if Sean Murray thinks it needs another six weeks to be as good as it can be, then I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But some "fans" - how you can be a fan of an unreleased game is one thing, but the behaviour of these people is entirely another - have taken umbrage with the delay, and sent death threats to Murray.

Leaving aside the logical issue (how is killing the lead developer supposed to expedite the game's release?), the idea that anybody looking forward to No Man's Sky could bear any ill will towards this man blows my mind.

These are people who have attached some part of their personal identity (and self worth) to this game, as ill-advised as that is. Why wouldn't they want it to be the best it can be?

This lack of perspective stuns me every time it appears in gamers (really, I should expect it by now). I felt the pangs of disappointment when I read those first reports of the delay, and the regretful acceptance when it was confirmed.

But Jesus - we've been waiting years for the game to come out. What's six more weeks?

(I'm still of the opinion that Sony should never have announced a date for the game at all, and just sent out a press release saying, "by the way, No Man's Sky is out - happy exploring!".)