The Journey Continues: Checking in on an old friend a decade later

My adventures in revisiting No Man's Sky in 2026 after years of absence On a whim in 2016, I pre-ordered Hello Games' No Man's Sky. I'd seen a few trailers, loved the concept of exploring a potentially infinite space but that was kinda it. I didn't pour over gameplay videos, read dev logs or anything I just hit that pre-order and then one day, there it was in my steam library. I hopped in, claimed my pre-order bonus starship and went to explore the digital cosmos. Screenshot from launch week; was stoked to find my first planet with mushroom trees! I think like a lot of day 1 players I had a bit of confusion after getting to a second or third planet and realizing that wasn't that much of diversity between them. Same-ish minerals, plants and animals, same-ish loops for what to do. Still though, I had a great time with it trying to upgrade my backpack to carry more shit, trying to track down technology modules that would let me survive hostile environments longer, find better tools,…