No Man's Sky is in the midst of a rather rough launch, but beyond its technical issues it's shaping up to be one of the most polarizing games in recent memory. Reviews are all over the map, and a quick look at our take on the game — and the comments that follow it — show that this is a title that defies consensus. For those who enjoy the game's "exploration simulator" nature (and I count myself in this group) it's an experience unlike anything else out there, and it's something that sticks with you despite crashes, repeitive gameplay, or any of the other perfectly valid complaints raised by the game's detractors.

This is a game that sticks in your head, and I found myself thinking about it a lot over the weekend. I thought about how the different parts of the game work together, and how gameplay elements that seem disconnected at first ultimately come together in the service of the game's "exploration" core.

So let's talk about the scanning visor in No Man's Sky.

Look at the world

The way No Man's Sky's economy works is tied into the resources you gather and the monetary "Units" you earn from selling those resources. Units help you acquire rare resources and better ships, which in turn help you progress further in the game, so finding a good way to earn money is essential. You can shuttle mined resources back and forth to a trader if you like, but one of the best ways to earn money is through scanning plant and animal life on the planets you explore.

Scanning is done via your visor. Zoom in once or twice and focus your sanner's crosshairs on flora or fauna and you'll complete your scan, learning the species' procedurally generated name and details. You don't need to kill anything, you just need to focus on it. It's a mechanic that echoes games like Pokémon Snap and Beyond Good and Evil.

Once scanned, plants and animals can be named and uploaded. Plants aren't particularly interesting to scan and don't earn you much money, so animal life is where you will find the real rewards. Uploading a new animal species nets you a decent monetary reward and — this is where the real brillaint part comes in — if you manage to scan all the different animal species on a given world you can earn a huge completionist bonus.

All creatures great and small

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So you explore, and you scan. The grazing animals are easy to find. Predators can be trickier, but if you keep your distance you'll be okay. If your world of choice has water, you'll need to dive in and document the guppies and sharks. Flying creatures are often the hardest, as the game's scanner often stubbornly refuses to recognize flocks high above your head. Getting up on a mountain can help, or you can shoot one down and scan the corpse (you monster).

Procedural generation is the star of the show in No Man's Sky (it's pretty much the whole show really, as the game's combat, resource gathering, and other mechanics aren't much to write home about) and the animal life is one of the most interesting uses of that procedural generation. So what's brillaint about the game's scanning visor is that it establishes a mechanical reason simply to look at all the cool stuff around you. No fighting or puzzle solving needed. Just look at it. Observe. Appreciate.

It's like No Man's Sky's procedural generation system is some kind of A.I. artist, and the scanning visor is that artist proudly showing you all that it has made for you. The completionist bonus is there to give you a reason to see every single thing.

Once you've seen all a given planet has to offer in terms of plant and animal life and claimed your completionist bonus, it's time to take the money you earned as a wildlife photographer and invest it in your gear. Upgrade your suit so you can be a better explorer. Upgrade your ship so you can head to new worlds.

And then you get to do it all over again.

For more, don't miss our guide to everything you need to know before you start playing No Man's Sky.