9 Ways Hello Games Should Have Made No Man's Sky

8. Make Language Integral To Progress

Language in No Man’s Sky was touted to be an integral part of gameplay, and then just… wasn’t.

The idea of uncovering ‘Knowledge Stones’ and learning specific words to slowly decode alien sentences word-by-word is genius, but at no point do you really need to do it. Granted, it feels kinda cool to uncover things like “Money”, “Warning”, “Multi-Tool” etc. and see those words highlight in sequence so you can converse with your alien compadres, but as it stands, that sensation is the functionality’s only reward.

Playing off the idea that narrative-centric items are required to progress, have your weird, inherited device pulsate and react with the various language stones you find, clearing up the confusion as to why they’re reacting to your presence in the first place. From there, have the aliens you come across be keepers of specific items you need to progress, or augments for your ship, suit or weapon.

Whether it be crafting components, warp cells, bypass chips etc. all we’d need is a diary entry with our character saying to themselves, “I wonder if I can learn their language using this artefact”, before you then set out and begin piecing sentences together.

It gives language-learning a specific purpose, and although it may be slightly tedious process exploring to uncover alien words, would definitely add an element of progression to the language system overall, with tangible rewards for going out of your way to seek out monoliths and other ancient structures.