Two years ago No Man’s Sky was released after a lengthy and very prolific advertising campaign and was met with less than stellar reviews from a lot of users and reviewers, including myself.  As I’m sure a lot of people did, I basically walked away from No Man’s Sky shortly after it launched and never looked back.  That is until today when the “NEXT” update was released.

There isn’t much to say about my time with No Man’s Sky just yet, I’m too early to make a definitive decision about it either way.  I was spawned in on a harsh and unforgiving planet that was full of fire, poison and space cops, all of which were things that made completing the tutorial unnecessarily hard.  I just wanted to explore the world and figure things out at my own pace, but everywhere I turned was something trying to screw me over.

The whole issue was exacerbated by the still overly cumbersome menus and crafting system, but once I manged to wrap my head around where in the menus I need to look for things, the whole experience became a little more manageable.  But that process took me two hours, there’s video evidence of me being nearly defeated and re-rolling a new character on a new and hopefully more forgiving world.  It was harrowing to say the least.

I’m not far enough into No Man’s Sky NEXT to make a definitive statement about it either way, but so far I’m enjoying my time with it more than I did previously.  I still really dig the vibe of that game, from its retro-futurist visual style to its ripping soundtrack, it has an aesthetic appeal for sure.  Hell, even the new character customization options are pretty awesome, even if they’re not terribly diverse from the outset.  I am eager to see all of the content that’s been added and changed since I last played the game two years ago, and I think that’s really the driving force for me at the moment.

This whole blog may feel like I’ve basically said nothing about No Man’s Sky NEXT, but it only feels that way because it’s true.  I haven’t gotten far enough into it to formulate a new opinion about it.  What I will say is that I’m starting fresh and giving No Man’s Sky an honest second chance.