No Man's Sky has a little something for everyone: exploration, survival, combat, crafting, monsters, aliens, and robots. With so much to do and so much to see, it's easy to lose sight of what drove you to seek the stars in the first place. If you manage to stay on track and complete the game's storyline, you will find yourself in a new galaxy.
Choose one of four procedurally generated galaxies filled with an impossible number of randomly generated worlds. As far as mechanics go, it's the equivalent of New Game+. Narratively, everything begins again. Everything is 16. Your story never really ends and leaves players with a few questions.
8 Ghost In The Machine
The story of Artemis is a sad one. Artemis is a fellow Traveler who died while exploring the galaxy. Maybe. You actually speak to Artemis a few times before finding their grave. Following the questline, you have the option of "saving" Artemis by transferring their consciousness into a different, smaller simulation than the one you are currently in. Raising many more questions.
Like, is your simulation running inside a larger simulation? Why would the Korvax build it, and how did Nada steal it? Will Leonardo DiCaprio show up spinning tops? So much left dangling out there.
7 Derelict Freighters
Derelict freighters were added to the game during the Desolation update. They added an element of horror to the grand space adventure. They can be quite dangerous if you go in unprepared, and each has datapads and terminals that tell of their crews' demise.
Regardless of what did them in, you will never find any bodies, just the occasional glove or helmet of a space suit floating around as you trudge through the frigid environment. Conveniently, the crew has left space heaters lying around to help you from freezing to death, which was nice. Too bad they didn't think to help with the rogue security AI or weird space bugs.
6 Teleportation Terminals
Every inhabited system has a teleporter in the space station. The technology exists and is relatively inexpensive to build. The game requires you to have visited locations before being able to teleport there.
Still, thematically, you would think that you could just zap yourself anywhere in the cosmos if you had the coordinates. Why, then, is space travel so prevalent? Teleport gates are cheap and can be built on any planet in any system. They also take your ship with you when you go, which is very handy.
5 The First Of Many
In every group, there is that one person who just refuses to get along with figures of authority. One such entity in your little group of Travelers is -null-. Like the other Travelers, -null- took the stars to explore and loved it, so much so that they decided to see absolutely everything, rebelling against the wishes of Atlas to do so.
-null- spent lifetimes seeing all their universe had to offer, only for Alas to show them the infinite multiverse before cutting them off. However, the question remains: how long did it take -null- to catalog an entire universe? How petty is Atlas to drop that kind of knowledge on -null- and then lose their number?
4 Nada and Polo
Priest Entity Nada and Specialist Polo are unique among their species, with confusing histories. Nada and Polo are hiding in a space station outside of normal time and space. Still, they have also been on many adventures, including a road trip to the center of an alternate-dimension galaxy.
There, sentinels had destroyed all life in less than an hour. They also managed to kill Polo after the duo had reached the center. Yet, somehow, they are both on the Anomaly aiding you and other Travelers who come to visit them.
3 Space Anomaly
The Space Anomaly is the multiplayer hub of No Man’s Sky and the home of Nada and Polo. Home to Nada, Polo, and a host of other Travelers, this summonable marketplace seemingly exists everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It keeps its inhabitants hidden from both Altas and the Sentinels.
Still, there is no real explanation for how or why this place exists. A running theory is that the Anomaly uses the same technology as the Sentinels themselves, allowing it to warp anywhere in the universe. What is unknown is how it manages to be in different places for different Travelers.
2 The Atlas
You discover that the Atlas is a computer running a multiverse simulation during the main storyline. A failing multiverse simulation at that. You never find out who created the Atlas or its purpose. It is also unclear how long the simulation has been running, but it is implied that it has been going on for a very, very long time. Long enough for -null- to have visited every planet in their universe.
Even the most efficient route, free of any delay, would take billions of years to travel. But how long is a year in the simulation? Is it a year? A month? A fraction of a second? The Atlas might know, but let's be honest, it's pretty passive-aggressive. It would probably just get upset that you didn't know already.
1 The Purge
The Purge refers to the mission that can result in the resetting of the simulation - not a single night of lawlessness. Following the path of the Atlas can end with you resetting the entire universe because turning it off and back on again works every time. This allows you to move on to a galaxy of your choice.
If the simulation is reset, you still have access to the Elucid galaxy, but it is not explained why. From the Space Anomaly, you can teleport to any base you had built previously, dropping you right back into the simulation that should not exist anymore. You can confidently finish the main storyline, with absolutely no consequences, just like in a true simulation.