7 Reasons No Man's Sky Should Be Considered For Game Of The Year 2016

6. Balancing The Game's Core Formulae Is A Work Of Genius

Think about it - almost all other developers would say "The player needs X item at X time, we'll put it here", but Hello Games coded a universe to do that on its own.

Buying up crafting components, scanning creatures, building bases, making items, trading, dogfighting, exploring, terraforming, underwater exploration - at any given time there a ton of things you could be doing, but it all hinges on a constant back and forth with the game's generative formulae.

That is to say, no matter whether you're blowing apart rocks or collecting them, NMS needs to feel balanced, exuding the feeling that you're not 'breaking it' through experimentation - a feeling you get almost immediately when playing something like a Bethesda game.

For example, if you've downed your ship, you'll need plutonium to appear - but not so much that it dominates the planet itself, or makes it feel like the place you're exploring is defined by such an element. If you're setting up a home base or looking to augment your ExoSuit, the components necessary need to pop up with enough frequency that it doesn't feel like a fruitless endeavour, as well as reacting to whichever weather conditions have dogged you for the past few hours.

All round, the game needs to dole out rewards, items and a sense of progress without feeling like it's doing so, and that, is a very hard thing to get right - especially when you factor in all the algorithms that govern a planet's creation.