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

3. An Unprecedented Feeling Of Genuine Exploration

Okay, now this is a weird one, because it comes specifically from the way Hello Games and Sean Murray advertised and showcased No Man's Sky for the duration of its development. Which is to say: They barely nailed down any particular gameplay loops, and pretty much refused to categorise its core features until launch.

As a result, on that fateful first day, popping in NMS literally meant you didn't really know what to expect - and it's a quality that fed into exploring your first planet, fixing up your ship and eventually boosting off the surface to explore the cosmos.

Simply because of how this detail unfolded surrounding the game; the effort it takes to leave a planet and the lack of knowledge as to whether there were characters, aliens etc. waiting for you amongst the stars, it meant the first time you touched down in a space station and actually saw other sentient life, that was honestly a pretty amazing moment.

And those first experiences count for a lot: Your first unique life form, first network of underground caves, first Sentinel duel - they all felt unique thanks to how the game presents its content in this huge environment of dynamic interaction, and that's not a sensation you get from more heavily scripted video games.