14 DAY TRIAL // What we know:
No Man's Sky was considered the star of last year's VGX awards, instantly generating massive hype and suggesting to everyone that it might just be one of the greatest games ever made, the gem that everyone was waiting for.
The trailer revealed during VGX 2013 featured an uninterrupted shot depicting a character seamlessly navigating from underwater onto a space ship parked on the beach and then heading for the stars.
For the moment, nobody knows exactly what the game will play like, but the interviews with its developers Hello Games have revealed that the game will likely be compared to Minecraft, DayZ, Dark Souls and probably Journey.
The game will be entirely procedurally generated and the main goal will be exploration. Nothing is scripted and the contents of the game are going to be completely unknown, and completely destructible.
Every planet that players discover will be marked on their galactic map, along with its name, resources and particularities, and players will be able to share their information (if so they choose) in order to create a global galactic map.
If the materials found on planets are valuable, the planets will attract new players to come visit. No Man's Sky won't be a multiplayer game in the classic sense of the word, but other players' actions will definitely impact your experience, as actions of great significance will be shared between players.
Hello Games have stated that failure is also a big part of No Man's Sky, and that the player's choices will determine how well they fare, as although there will be no dying, poor choices will lead to players losing everything and having to start over.
Why it matters:
The developers shared their vision that the game will be a thrilling single-player experience enriched by a community playing with a shared purpose, something along the lines of how Spore worked.
The old saying “the sky's the limit” will likely get a new meaning when No Man's Sky launches, as the developers have stated that their intention is for players to experience a truly vast universe where, if they see a star in the sky, they can actually fly there and explore it.
No Man's Sky promises to bring something new to the table, not just an EVE Online clone or a space combat sim, or building game, but a whole new gameplay experience that takes a little bit of everything and presents it in a unique way.
For now, it's still too early to tell anything definitive, and we can only wait for Hello Games to make their next reveal.
Softpedia is hosting a whole series of Incoming 2014 articles, covering the most anticipated games of the year.