No Man's Sky: How We Intend To Cover It

No Man's Sky [official site] is out today! On PS4. In America only. Sigh.

The No Oceans banner that used to so frequently be flown on the good ship RPS has been gathering dust of late, so improved have game releases been in recent times. It's a sad thing that it should be an exciting-looking indie game that's had us dust it off. With PC code not likely to reach us before it reaches you on Friday, below are our plans for trying to bring you the most useful coverage we can.

It's always the games with the biggest buzz that are the hardest to actually review. Despite our extensive efforts over the last few weeks we've been unable to get even an official reply from Hello Games, let alone information about whether PC review code would become available. (Even "No" would have helped.) At this point it seems heavily likely that we'll not be getting access to the PC version of the already-released game before it goes live on Steam on Friday, and as such cannot provide you with the review coverage you rightly expect when deciding whether to buy the game. We're really sorry about that.

So here's our plan to let you know as much about the game as we can. On Wednesday, posthumans depending, we'll be receiving our purchased copy of the PS4 game, which I'll then play a good amount to bring you at least some impressions of the game in time for Friday's PC release. Obviously this won't even resemble a review, because we'll have no idea if the PC version will be an all-shining super-dooper superior build, a technical disaster of epic proportions, or something in-between. But at least we'll finally be able to tell you what No Man's Sky actually is, and thus give you an idea if it's a game you'll want to play.

Hopefully some point on Friday (we don't know exactly what time the PC version will release, though Sean Murray says they're aiming for 6pm GMT - just the most obnoxious time to screw UK Summer holidayers) we'll be able to bring you news of whether it actually runs on PC, and whether the servers can sustain the launch. Then I'll spend the weekend playing the game and hopefully by Monday be able to offer you a Wot I Think.

This is a sucky situation for all of us, because at RPS we're not only vehemently against the con of pre-ordering, but further believe that waiting until reviews are available is by far the most sensible thing to do when buying a game. Spending £40 out of excitement and hope, only to realise you've got a stinking dud, is something we're supposed to be here to prevent. Situations like this (no matter their cause - we're perfectly sure that Hello are continuing to have the most intense weeks of their lives as they work flat-out to get the PC build working now the PS4 one is out the door) are bad for consumers, and after the years of hype the idea of waiting a full week after its initial release to buy it isn't desirable at all. Clearly PS4 reviews will start popping up from today onward, so there's at least that.

In the meantime, why not see if there are any events happening in local woods near you?

Disclosure: Our Alec did some writing for No Man’s Sky. I'd like to stress that I've never spoken to him about this, on purpose, and assume he can only have made it worse.