E3 2015: The Indie Factor – No Man’s Sky
June 29, 2015The Indies are coming! The Indies are coming…at least to E3. Thanks are due, in large part to the meteoric rise and explosion of crowdfunding as a means to bankroll a project from start to finish; Indie games have truly come into their own. Through the availability of alternative resourcing, great demand resulting in wildly successful campaigns, and staunch dedication to “platform agnosticism” a approach of open proliferation onto all available systems and hardware; Indies have been able to migrate and have greater agency within the mainstream gaming community than ever before.
No Man’s Sky is poised to do just that; to boldly go where no man or game- whether indie or not- has ventured: to explore an “entire” procedural generated universe, where actions and choices made by gamers half a world away have lasting, permanent impact and consequence on the game’s universe and to its community of players alike. Destroy a planet during your play through? It will not only vanish from existence during your experience, but will also affect the journeys experienced by other players. In short, it’s a singular anomaly-simultaneously offering unique, deeply personal gameplay while consequence itself paints in broad strokes, permanently changing the universe for every user through the power of subsequent choice.
Choices. That’s what No Man’s Sky at its crux, really offers; Choices which develop into a natural chain of progression. In other words, Life imitates art; art imitates Life. I can’t wait to see what No Man’s Sky will bring to the table for its players and ultimately, the industry at large as we approached the end of E3 less than two weeks ago. It’s importance cannot be understated, for it may be the first with indie roots to match the scale of a triple A title without the manpower and budget it normally takes for it to become a reality.
Will this change the development process for games as a whole? Only time will tell… The better question to ask I think is: “Are we prepared for it when it inevitably does?”
– Lindsay Berkovitz, (aka, Joystick Junkie), Staff Writer, Phoenix Genesis
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