Despite No Man’s Sky, the sci-fi epic from Hello Games, looking downright incredible in size, scale, and ambition – we still don’t really have a full grasp of how much of a “sandbox” the game is.
Now, thanks to an interview/walkthrough coordinated between Hello Games’ Sean Murray and Eurogamer, we’ve learned that you can terraform the land on any planet you happen to visit, and it sounds quite involved:
“As Sean scans the environment, cubes of collectible materials are outlined against the terrain. He then fires projectiles towards them, destroying great chunks of the scenery with a shimmery sci-fi sound effect.”
“You can see the terrain is destructible, which is something we haven’t shown people before,” Murray said. To be clear, this is something Murray and crew haven’t shown the public yet, as it sounds like something they’re still incubating a bit. When asked if you could literally terraform the game (a la Minecraft), Murray responded:
“We’re not sure how much we want to say because I don’t want it to become the thing. Even showing this I’m nervous, because people will think, ‘Oh, right – it’s like Minecraft’, and then it becomes that. ‘It’s the Minecraft in space game!'”
He went on to describe resource gathering in other sandboxes as “super boring,” and that developers and gamers alike tend to relegate the entire process to being a chore. Hello Games are trying to make it fun, as Murray demonstrated:
“Resource gathering in every game is normally super boring, and people purposely make it like a chore. And we want it to be fun. It’s something we’re still playing about with. It’s quite fun to be able to do it from a distance, and we also have this grenade thing. Now this isn’t how it will look – it will be like plasma ball – you’ll just have to trust me. And that blows holes in the terrain. And if you’re really good… [Sean expertly levels the surrounding scenery]”
You’re probably wondering just how much you can mess around with the environment in No Man’s Sky, as the game’s visuals probably lead you to assume some sort of limitations are in place. However, Murray said that for some people, simply digging a hole and shoving things into it is their entertainment, and you can totally do just that:
“I find myself just doing this, being on a mountain and scanning and then just destroying everything around me. Doing the usual stupid things of drilling a hole and having an animal fall into it. Stuff like that keeps me amused. And when people are like, ‘What do you do [in No Man’s Sky]?’, the reality is, for some people just that, and that’s fine.”
So count me in for being even more hyped now – although we’ve still yet to truly get our hands on the game, unfortunately. In case you missed our preview/recap from last month, you can find that here. No Man’s Sky is currently in development for both PC and Playstation 4, although it will be a timed exclusive on PS4.
