No Man’s Sky does not have a traditional story with cutscenes and a predefined hero.
Like Minecraft and Terraria, the player creates and defines their own experience.
Planets are planet sized. You can spend days exploring just one world, experiencing its day and night cycles while walking its surface or flying through the sky in your spaceship (or jet pack)
Once you discover a planet, you can change its randomly generated name to whatever you want. The same goes for any creatures you find on its surface.
Although you're free to do what you want in No Man's Sky, there are consequences for your actions. If you kill too many creatures or deplete a planet's valuable resources, your “wanted” level will go up, and the planet’s “Sentinels” will come after you.
If you pick a fight in space, the space police will come after you.
And if you pick a fight with them, prepare to take on the military.
Almost everything in the game can be upgraded: shields, ships, weapons, and even your spacesuit.
There are three basic gameplays styles: exploring, trading, and fighting.
If you die in the game, you'll lose any information you did not save to "The Atlus", a giant computer that records your progress and can be accessed via a planet's beacons.
You can literally craft items on an atomic level by using blueprints you find in the game.
Even when the game "ends" (i.e.making it to the center of the galaxy) you can continue to explore worlds for as long as you want.
You can share your discoveries online by uploading information to The Atlus, which will allow friends to see everything you've discovered in the game.
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