The procedurally generated, exploration game developed by British Hello Games, No Man’s Sky, will make its debut on PS4 later this year. While much of the game remains a mystery, the sheer size of the in-game universe has been the subject of discussion since it’s unveiling.
Speaking at GDC 2015, Hello Games’ Art Director Greg Duncan revealed that because the game world is so huge, it is functionally impossible for the small team to fully oversee the creation of the some 18 quintillion planets estimated to inhabit the game. To provide some sense of feedback to the developers, they created space probes within the universe which will visit each of the worlds and record short videos to document what they find.
This documentation will assist the team to adjust things as best as they can. Because everything players will see in No Man’s Sky is procedurally generated based on a “big box of maths” written by Hello Games, there’s no way to know just what players will encounter without visiting the worlds before hand. The probes allow the developers to do that and attempt to reign in the chaos they’ve created if need be.
No Man’s Sky is looking like one of the most ambitious videogame projects we’ve seen yet and is certainly going to be interesting. It’s coming to PS4 this year and to PC some time after.
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