No Man’s Sky is launching in another approximately 2 or so weeks and I am definitely riding the hype train for this one. I mean there is so much to explore and experience, I am eager to get my hands on it. Getting to the topic at hand here, we all know what ‘Return-To’ games are. Well in simple language, they are games that we always keep coming back to after playing something else or if there is nothing else to play or if we just want to have a casual session sometime in the middle of the night for a few minutes or so and I think No Man’s Sky will be the one game that all buyers will be returning to time and again.

At this point we all know that No Man’s Sky does not particularly have a plot, rather the aim is to reach the centre of the universe and everyone will have their own unique adventures as they reach the objective. People are going to sink in at least 50-60 before they start feeling the fatigue. The 50-60 hours is an average and those who are very much into it will be spending much more.

Personally I think I’ll be spending no less than 150-200 hours in the game initially (Emphasis on this word). The reason for this pre-determined time is that a game with no story or narrative is not going to have a driving factor that keeps you moving ahead. I am betting many of you will pick up Deus Ex: Mankind Divided or Final Fantasy XV, by the end of August, finish the respective games and then come back to NMS and same will be the case with me. Or maybe you’ll pick up something in September or the rest of the year, complete the games and definitely come back to it.

Well all the reasons for this whole ‘Return-to game’ discussion will revolve around the fact that you’ll always be seeing new things. Procedurally generated means, no two planets will be the same and even the life forms will differ, you’ll get to mine different resources, befriend various aliens, do a lot of crafting and much more.

Basically you won’t be likely to see a repetition of anything during your adventures. For me personally, my ‘return-to’ games till now have been Skyrim, GTA V and Witcher 3, but in those games, there is a structure (Not counting GTA Online), there are missions and once the missions are over all you can do in those games is random things without a sense of accomplishment. I mean I play games like Doom and Dark Souls(Single player), and after such an exhilarating experience we tend to play games which give us a sandbox sort of feeling and No Man’s Sky is going to be that game.

Yes there are such games which don’t have structure, but for some reason be it gameplay, graphics or something else, I don’t find a reason to go back to them, Minecraft maybe one such game, but it is only fun when played with friends, unless of course you have a creative grey matter.

The whole structure of No Man’s Sky is based on giving you the freedom that you have always wanted and letting you do whatever you want- You can terraform a planet, find hidden caves, roam about in space as a space pirate, seamlessly land on planets and go back into space. The possibilities are many and the fact that no one can see everything in a life-time just makes it all the more better.

Being a PC gamer, I can’t imagine the modding possibilities of this game. I dunno if the game would be moddable or not, but the possibility alone is enticing. Another aspect of the game that is not clear to me is the cross-play feature. From what I understand the PC gamers and PS4 gamers will be sharing the same universe, and if that’s the case it’ll be great.

I just hope that Hello Games make NMS available for the Xbox gamers as well and if possible stretch it to Nintendo’s side as well, because honestly speaking this game will be more fun with more number of people in the universe. With 18 quintillion explorable planets, that no single person is going to be able to see in a lifetime, I would like to see as many gamers as possible playing this game.

So what do you think about the ‘Return-to’ games discussion? What are your return to games? Do you agree with our points? Do you disagree? Leave us know your thoughts in the comments below.