--- Spoiler Warning ---
In a limitless universe there's no such things as an ending.
This afternoon, not a few hours ago, I reached the centre of the Euclid Galaxy in No Man's Sky. It took over 200,000 light years, 446 systems, 97 planets and more antimatter than I care to mention. Upon so doing, I entered an unmissable cut-scene. Instead of moving forwards like with all previous system jumps, space fell backwards and I with it, making brief glimpses at systems shooting away from me. Some of them must have been ones I have visited and named during my journey. I travelled further and further back until there were no stars to see and darkness reigned; until the featureless void before me split down the middle in a horizon of white light. This flared past the limits of my vision, rendering me senseless, until I awoke upon a new planet in much the same way I had at the very beginning of my journey. My ship was in dire need of repair, I had new ground below and a new sky above. I stood on a rolling hill at the sunset-lit valley before me, another planet close by hanging in the sky behind the evening clouds. A few moments later I would converse with Atlas and, this time, accept the guidance of its path. My adventure is far, far from over.
Before these humbling events and while working to this goal I began to hear rumours, due to my liking of Screenjunkies' Honest Trailers and a comment from my brother in law, thus leading to my research into several critique websites. It came to my attention that the mainstream opinion of No Man's Sky is the ending is anticlimactic, disappointing or simply downright rubbish.
If I may speak honestly myself, I find this opinion to be anticlimactic, disappointing and downright rubbish.
In this writer's opinion, these critics have missed the point of No Man's Sky. It, unlike any other game in existence, is overwhelming in size and scope. It allows the naming and designation of new worlds and species of animals, never before seen but since immortalised by my hand. There is a finite number of planets to explore but at 18 quintillion our own galaxy will come to end before we can walk on all of them. It is a game like none other seen before it.
It is a perfect, realistic representation of what would happen were humans ever inclined to move on from our world; they would have an endless universe surrounding them, a chance to explore and categorise it all by their own choices, and most importantly they never, ever finish.
People have critiqued the game for having no story line, my counterpoint to which is: "So?" Space exploration, adventurism at is purest, even life itself, doesn't have a plot or story unless you create one. We are our masters of equilibrium and disruptions to it, but have gotten used to playing part to somebody else's. We are too used to titles being so rich in narrative, we rebel when games allow us to "self serve" and use that underestimated and often forgotten human power known as imagination. I for one congratulate HelloGames for the invitation into their world and a glimpse into 'procedurally generating' technologies which I hope to usher in a new age of big, beautiful and infinite video games.
(And, on a personal note, I would always prefer no story to a poor one.)
This is not a review of the game itself; this is a review of the reviews. To anyone disheartened or 'let down' by reaching the centre, I ask what you were really expecting? Some lush and heaven-like utopia? A peek behind the red pulse known as Atlas? Perhaps an answer to that baffling and infuriating question simply known as "Why?"
As a race we are destined to never know these things but spend our lives yearning to find out. No Man's Sky portrayed that beautifully and poignantly. Yes, there were hardships. Yes, there was frustration. Yet I continued on through the cosmos, determined and in search of truth, in so similar a way that we all do in "real life." I didn't find it today. I'll still be looking tomorrow.
I expected what lay at the centre of the galaxy, before watching online videos and reading reviews, because what else could it have possibly been? The underlying truth to all things is never easily within our grasp, and crossing one galaxy is not nearly enough to achieve it.
And when your task is to seek the centre of all creation, you must not be surprised if you end up right back where you started.
