6 Ups & 9 Downs From No Man's Sky

3. It's Ultimately Pretty Repetitive

Though the game arguably has more scripted moments than many players might've been expecting, the meat and potatoes of the game are admittedly still very samey, as becomes pretty apparent after around 15-20 hours of play.

The formula to reaching the galactic core is basically as such: visit a planet, mine resources, build warp cells, warp jump and visit planets at your leisure, visit an alien species whenever the game prompts you to get special goodies like warp cells and routes to black holes which speed up travel, and so on.

Yes, story elements do begin to unfold as you progress, but these are still relatively minor variations, and it's safe to say that anyone picking up this game for the narrative will probably be sorely disappointed.

Now, that's not to say that the exploration isn't fun, because it absolutely is, simply that there's not a lot of evidence from extensive play-testing so far that this game is going to feel varied enough over, say, 100 hours. Though the grind is more pleasant and less intense than, say, an MMO, it's likely that players may begin to feel fatigue as they travel deeper to the core.