GOTM: March '22
Heading into March I was looking forward to playing a bunch of new releases, including Triangle Strategy, Gran Turismo 7, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, and Tunic, all of which I’m currently enjoying. They all come with caveats though: Triangle Strategy gets off to a very slow start, Gran Turismo 7’s most desirable cars are unreasonably expensive, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands encourages exploration in a world that doesn’t seem built for it, and Tunic is off to an awesome start but it doesn’t have its hooks in me just yet. No Man’s Sky, on the other hand, is a game that I put a lot of time into last month and which gets better every time I return to it.
Above: A handful of circa 2018 Photo Mode screenshots from my current play through.
I’ve had something of a spotty history with No Man’s Sky over the years. I bought into the pre-release hype in such a major way that, while working at Blizzard and spending what disposable income I had at the time on more games than I had time to play, I announced to my colleagues that my New Year’s Resolution for 2016 was to buy only one game all year: No Man’s Sky. I didn’t stick to it of course, not only because I had to have the new Fire Emblem for my 3DS, but also because–like most folks–I found No Man’s Sky pretty underwhelming at launch.
Above: Photo Mode screenshots of my first Exotic ship. I’ve found and owned countless others in the years since, but I still use this one regularly.
Fast forward six years though, and No Man’s Sky is a really special game. Like every Expedition before it, the Exobiology Expedition 5 that launched on February 24 pulled me back in, and thanks in part to content introduced in the Sentinel Update on February 16, I’ve yet to bounce off despite finishing the Expedition and unlocking all of its rewards weeks ago. What have I been doing? Well, in addition to making it my new mission to color coordinate my ship collection, I’ve built a couple of Nanite farms, cleared out all of the obsolete items that have been taking up space in my freighter storage for literal years, and baked countless Jellied Fur Tarts to give away to other players as part of an item-duping process. And that’s just what I’ve been up to in my current “main” play through.
Above: Six years after I started playing, I still feel compelled to take Photo Mode shots almost every time I play.
Elsewhere, I’m several hours into my first permadeath run, which I started after realizing that it’s the only way I’m ever going to get the last two Xbox Achievements that I need. Even setting the permadeath aside, the opening hours of No Man’s Sky feel like a completely different and significantly more punishing game. I’ve already come close to death a few times, not because I tangled with aggressive fauna or stood on a dangerous plant, but because the resources needed to keep my life support and hazard protection running were incredibly scarce on my starter planet. My main traveler hasn’t even had to think about this sort of thing in their last couple hundred hours of play time.
How long I’ll stick with No Man’s Sky on this occasion remains to be seen, but as long as Sean and the team at Hello Games keep adding new content, I’ll keep coming back.
