2. No Man's Sky (PC, PS4)
A fully explorable universe larger than anything we could possibly imagine has always been something of a holy grail in video games, and 2016 looks set to be the year that we finally obtain it. No Man's Sky will offer us the
biggest game world (or universe) of all time, using procedural generation to create billions of unique planets that you'll be able to fly between and explore. The gameplay will revolve around survival, as you harvest minerals from planets, hunt the strange creatures that roam them, and upgrade the spaceship that you use to traverse this existentially overwhelming in-game universe. There are still many unanswered questions about No Man's Sky. We don't really have a clue about how well the gameplay works, or whether the planets you visit are truly unique and fascinating places to explore or just repetitive cut/paste jobs distinguished only by their colour palettes. But it's hard not to get excited by the videos depicting players descending from a galactic space battle towards a planet, then seamlessly penetrating its atmosphere before coming to land on the uncharted surface. It's such a cool premise that it's hard to believe that it can actually work convincingly. At least now in 2016, after years of anticipation, we'll get to find out whether our space-faring video game fantasies will come true.