Buy the lie: On “No Man’s Sky” and why we keep believing in game developers
When “No Man’s Sky” was announced at the PlayStation Experience in 2013, it was a very tall order. An undertaking the likes of which had never been seen before, the game promised an ever expanding universe so vast, you’d never see the end of it, thrilling space travel and combat, a rich crafting system, planets with their own unique flora and fauna, a online co-operative experience that could link thousands of players together simultaneously, and a complex survival system that was punishing enough to make death a disappointment but fair enough for you to learn and adapt.
All of that and more failed to show up when the game hit shelves and digital retailers on Aug. 9. The game itself does deliver on the massive universe promise, but fell flat on everything else. While “No Man’s Sky” is another example of blatant disregard for what we, the player, have been promised by the developer, the Hello Games title isn’t the first to lead the consumer on a long walk for a very short drink of water.
Take Ubisoft for example. For literal years, the company has been promising the moon, only to barely deliver the dirt on our shoes. “Watch Dogs,” “Assassin’s Creed: Unity,” “The Division” and “Rainbow Six: Siege,” all of which were huge, groundbreaking titles at announcement, failed to deliver on every level. “Bungie had Destiny,” a game which had a development cost of $500 million, the GDP of a small country, also promised the universe, only to give us next to nothing upon launch. EA’s “Spore,” or pretty much anything Peter Molyneux has developed over the years time and time again, has been a let down by these developers and fall prey to the “hype train.”
Which begs the question: why do we keep putting our faith in these huge games that will fail us at launch? The is answer is simpler than you may think; it’s because we want to believe. We want to take the journey into these worlds and step through into our imaginations and hope that down the road, the developers fix these games and add to them. Sure, Spore never did quite work out in the end, but Destiny has become a whole new game and has given the player what we needed a year ago. “The Division” is improving after months of shaky updates and an abysmal first DLC pack, and Molyneux’s greatest achievement, Black and White 2, now regarded as the example of a “God Game.”
So yeah, at the moment “No Man’s Sky” is a letdown and a colossal disappointment. Virtually unplayable and terribly boring, this game has little to offer. However, it still has that sense of curiosity and grandeur that entranced players three years ago, and with patches and updates coming in daily, it has potential– just like every other one that has let us down.
Only time will tell, but for now, we have hope and faith that we, the players and dreamers, will be rewarded in the end.
