With every new update, No Man's Sky becomes more of a game about building, creating, and putting down roots in its vast procedural galaxy. You can now establish bases, become the mayor of a frontier town, reprogram drones, breed animals, and more besides. Entertaining, sure, but more reasons to find a planet and stay there for an extended period of time—which seems at odds with the game's original promise of infinite exploration. I get why, of course. The popularity of games like Valheim are proof that people love this stuff. But for me—someone who wants to see what's out there—I can't get excited about it.

That's why I don't bother with any of it anymore. It's been a while since I played No Man's Sky the way I'm 'supposed' to—by which I mean mining resources, crafting fuel, surviving hostile environments, recharging tech, building bases, and so on. That's not to say I've never enjoyed this aspect of the game. I've spent hours in Survival mode battling the elements and scraping together enough elements to craft life-saving supplies. There's fun to be had here, but my issue is that it's all just one big, elaborate obstacle getting in the way of the thing in No Man's Sky that really interests and thrills me: seeing more weird planets.

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In Normal or Survival mode, No Man's Sky gets tiresome fast. You'll be ready to jet off to another planet, only to realise that you're out of thruster fuel or warp cells. So off you go traipsing around a miserable toxic planet laser-beaming rocks and giant mushrooms until you have enough materials to get the hell out of there. I reached a point with this stuff where I just thought: life's too short. This isn't fun. It's work. There are 18 quintillion planets in this game and I want to see as many of them as I can, not waste away on this gloomy rock—which is why I was delighted when Creative mode was introduced in a post-launch update.

No Man's Sky

Creative mode strips most of the 'game' out of No Man's Sky. You begin with all blueprints and construction parts, and you can craft and build freely without having to gather resources. The upside of this for the exploration-minded player is that whenever anything needs recharging, you can do it instantly. I can't overstate how great it feels coming out of Survival mode and just pumping your ship full of warp cells without having to lift a finger. You can go anywhere, anytime, stress-free. See an expensive, fancy-looking NPC ship you want landing in a station? Grab it. Won't cost you a single space penny.

This will ruin the game for some people. For a lot of players the struggle is the game, and just having everything handed to you on a plate defeats the point. Fair enough, but that's not me. I just want to fly between planets at my leisure, wondering what wild, weird, wonderful world the procedural generation algorithm will toss at me next. It lets me enjoy the game's beautiful, vividly colourful universe without any pressure or checklists in my head. I can absorb the atmosphere, feel the vibe, and explore strange new worlds on my own terms. This is the game I wanted No Man's Sky to be from the moment it was revealed.

For me, the value in No Man's Sky doesn't come from its systems; it comes from simply seeing stuff. I understand the satisfaction of surviving a freezing blizzard on some hellish ice world and escaping, but this is a game I enjoy a lot more when there are no stakes. I'm content to just fly around aimlessly looking at things. Planets, moons, nebulas, freighters, stars, stations—you name it, I like pointing my eyes towards it. The idea that you have to be doing something in a game for it to be entertaining has always felt outdated to me. Sometimes just existing somewhere atmospheric and visually stimulating is enjoyable enough.

No Man's Sky

There are a lot of boring, samey planets in No Man's Sky, and when supplies are limited, you often get stuck on them. But in Creative mode, where you can effortlessly skip between star systems, you don't have to settle for a dreary, barren little orb that's all scrub and desert. You can keep moving until you find somewhere interesting that's actually worth exploring, spend some time there enjoying the flora, fauna, and scenery, then jet off again without having to scrabble around for materials. It makes the pace of the game much breezier, and the excitement of finding a cool new planet more immediate.

It's cool that Hello Games is constantly adding new, more involved ways to interact with No Man's Sky. I just won't be engaging with it, because I'll be too busy soaring through space at a blistering pace, hopping merrily from planet to planet, soaking all that cosmic majesty in. It's nice to have the option to choose not to take part in the survival and crafting mechanics. I can get that experience from countless other games, and the novelty of it is long gone. If you gave up on No Man's Sky because it felt like a chore,give Creative mode a try. It's a liberating feeling being able to explore this galaxy without it feeling like a second job.

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