I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted a game to live up to its potential as much as No Man’s Sky

“ I’m getting closer to finally having all of my questions answered.

How the Sausage is Made

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“ It’s all punctuated by a ‘70s sci-fi movie soundtrack in the background, a la Mass Effect.

Game Time

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“ “There's no mini-map. We had one but we took it out. We want people to explore. Since no one has been here before, the mini-map shouldn't exist.”

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Nuts and Bolts

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“ Each upgrade will require resources, which can be harvested from the planets you visit – their rocks, their planets, or their creatures.

Wander This World

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Space Ghost

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“ My targeting reticule currently hovering over the planet approximately represents the size of the large area I just got done exploring down on the surface. It’s a mind-bending thought.

The End of the Beginning

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une 21 release date now set in stone . But after a new demo from Hello Games mastermind Sean Murray and an all-too-short 30-minute hands-on with a new build, I now have a much better sense of what No Man’s Sky is. And I still haven’t met a game I’d rather see live up to its full potential.This is where Hello’s team of a dozen-or-so developers come in handy. Murray uses his creative director powers to teleport to a new, fully fleshed-out planet ("I’m like god in this universe," he quips). It is genuinely stunning. Fish swim in the ocean. Sea plants wave back and forth. Palm trees stretch towards the sky. Tall red grass sprouts waist-high. Weird creatures roam. Mysterious buildings contrast the organic backdrop. Brontosaurus-like dinosaurs tower overhead. Odd, elk-like game trots about. And it’s all punctuated by a ‘70s sci-fi movie soundtrack in the background, a la Mass Effect."This delivers on what I’ve always wanted from the game,” Murray explains genuinely. “[That] feeling like I’ve stepped into a sci-fi book cover."“You can trade, you can fight, you can explore, [and] you can survive. It’s a giant sandbox – a universe-sized sandbox,” promises the humble Irishman. But Murray also seems to relish in the idea that No Man’s Sky is so massive that no FAQ or walkthrough could ever possibly help you. He wants you to explore it for yourself. “Nowhere out there is there a FAQ to show me where things are,” he says. “There's no mini-map. We had one but we took it out. We want people to explore. Since no one has been here before, the mini-map shouldn't exist.”So I began to wander. I noticed a hard-to-miss monolith jutting skyward. I approached it and discovered that it’s a relic of an ancient race: the Outpost B78 Korvax Standing Stone. “We are the Korvax echoes,” it reads. “We are the forgotten entities of Korvax convergence. Our wisdom and our casings still live.” I can ask the Korvax echoes to increase my understanding. When I do so, I’m told, “You have learned the Korvax word for ‘echoes’” and my standing with the aliens is increased (Murray notes that there are many alien races, and you can have separate, bespoke relationships with each; some may love you and others may hate you depending on your behavior).A press of the Options button on the DualShock 4 (I played on PlayStation 4, though the game will also be releasing for PC) brings up No Man’s Sky’s character management menus. Suit, Weapon, Ship, and Discoveries can all be drilled into; the latter being a list of where you’ve been and the former three being self-explanatory.“I can upgrade everything about myself,” Murray explains. “It's kind of a non-linear RPG. You can upgrade your tech tree in whatever way you want.”I walk outside and a medium-sized Lkevinov-Deng ship touches down at the outpost landing pad. I can buy it, but I don’t have anywhere near enough currency to do so. Instead, I admire the red, 30-foot-tall dinosaur-ish creature meandering by with a tail and little winglets on each of its forearms. It’s already been named – Offmano Duvauca – but you can indeed name new planets, flora, and fauna when you discover them.My criminally brief 30-minute hands-on is already two-thirds gone, and I have a hankering to get to outer space.To do so, I’m going to have to hack the landing pad since I didn’t have the cash to outright buy the impressive ship that docked (and soon left) a few moments ago. But I need plutonium in order to do craft the bypass chip. And so off I go, overheating my gun while trying to blast and collect as much plutonium as possible.Unfortunately, it seems I angered some of the native wildlife; a tiger-like animal comes bounding after me, chomping me from behind and forcing me to engage it. I get a few laser blasts in before turning to run. The beast fells me, and I have to respawn from the last spot I saved at, far away.I’m now a bit lost. Or at least turned around. I’m not entirely sure where the outpost landing pad is – or if I even have enough plutonium to complete the hacking panel I need – but after pressing down on the D-pad to do a sweeping scan of my nearby radius, it seems Hello placed my ship a kilometer away. A waypoint with a ship icon appeared on my HUD, so I followed it – freezing my face off in the process. Would I make it to the ship before Death’s icy grip grabbed hold of me again?Yes! It’s my own actual ship: the Arturo S94 (which, I admit, I’m not sure is its name or its class). I aim up and rocket towards the stratosphere. Murray notes that there are never any loading times in No Man’s Sky, and indeed I saw none in my hands-on time.I’m spoiled by choice as to what to do next: explore another planet? Start shooting at the fleet of freighter ships orbiting the planet? Just fly and see what happens? I aim for a nearby planet, pressing the Circle button to enable my ship’s top speed. Suddenly a nimble little ship darts in front of me. “Warning: Hostile ships on approach,” my HUD screams.I zoom closer, head for the blue-ringed opening in its side. It’s marked “17” upside down – it seems I got myself flipped around during my space combat – and I fly in. Autopilot takes over, flips me right-side-up, and lands me. It’s a space station. I walk down one of two hallways – one on either side – and find another shop terminal. I walk to the other side and find three person-sized tubes; here they act as save points. At the far end of the small room is a porthole window. I approach it and gaze outward into space. The scene is mostly red – maybe from a sun, maybe it’s just a planetary anomaly – and stare at a planet in the foreground. The bottom half is shrouded in darkness. A few ships zoom by in-between the planet and I. Murray says that my targeting reticule currently hovering over the planet approximately represents the size of the large area I just got done exploring down on the surface. It’s a mind-bending thought.“My favorite thing in the whole game is this window,” Murray muses.And so, finally, No Man’s Sky’s puzzle is slowly being pieced together. Trading, crafting, exploring, space combat, survival – I’ve experienced a small taste of them all now – but it’s almost frustratingly small. I can’t imagine ever playing this game for just 30 minutes at a time once the final version is in my hands. No Man’s Sky begs to be played for hours at a time. Its massive potential hasn’t lost a single shred of its luster, and many questions still remain. But I absolutely cannot wait to go try and find the answers to them. As Jean-Luc Picard said in the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, let’s see what’s out there.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews and Xbox Guru-in-Chief. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan , catch him on Podcast Unlocked , and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.