IGN First 18 Minute Gameplay Demo
No Man's Sky E3 2015 Sony Conference Gameplay Demo
I thought it might be interesting to look back at all the pre-release footage of this game and see how it differs from the shipped product, especially since GAF posters tend to do better trailer/demo analysis than I do. Perhaps a harder look at some of this stuff will give an indication of why some players' expectations were out of whack, or what it was that made the pre-release version so compelling when the final release fell a bit more flatly.
Things I've noticed off the top of my head:
IGN First video runs at super-smooth 60FPS and is being demo'ed with a PS4 controller. Was the PS4 version ever running at that framerate?
You can discover animals in both videos just by sending out your sonar "pulse". Super easy. In the final game there's a rather tedious "scanning" mechanic associated with discovery. You have to aim the camera centered on them and hold down a trigger for a few seconds.....frustratingly it only seems to work at shorter ranges.
Map markers had towers of light associated with them for easier navigation. That looks really nice and flashy. It also seems like you weren't frequently having to "Pulse" to get markers to stay on screen.....they were there persistently.
Mining was more of a point-and-shoot affair. Most rocks instantly blow up and generate resources. In the final version you're stuck with this beam that you must focus on a rock for many seconds at a time, and it slowly whittles the rock down and overheats a couple times in the process. I presume this change was made so that mining had kind of a different feel from shooting, but man does it look easier and less monotonous here.
There's a cool, giant, multi-level trading post on a planet with ships coming and going. Not sure if those are in the final game, but I haven't really gotten to them yet.
Thruster Fuel does not deplete every time your ship takes off (or at least there's no notification for it).....which leads me to the somewhat larger point of....
Around 12:00 in the IGN video Murray says you can play "Purely for Exploration", "Purely for Combat," "Purely as a Scavanger".....even going so far as to claim that you might be able to play the game without ever setting foot on a planet. At some point I get the sense this might have been an intended goal, that you should be able to play whatever role you want. That's clearly changed. Perhaps pressure to be a more proper videogame made them more tightly integrate all the survival/collection aspects. That's why you're picking up all kinds of stuff to refuel and recharge, dealing with depleted tools and life support systems. As it is, you can't play "purely" for one particular role......but looking at these early videos where there's no discernible economic penalties for joyriding, no cost for basic galactic mobility, it seems that at one point at least "pure" roles were viable. An explorer would simply be able to get credits for exploring, and that cash would be used to fund his exploits around the galaxy.
What are the differences you have noticed between this and other early alpha/beta footage, and No Man's Sky 1.03?
No Man's Sky E3 2015 Sony Conference Gameplay Demo
I thought it might be interesting to look back at all the pre-release footage of this game and see how it differs from the shipped product, especially since GAF posters tend to do better trailer/demo analysis than I do. Perhaps a harder look at some of this stuff will give an indication of why some players' expectations were out of whack, or what it was that made the pre-release version so compelling when the final release fell a bit more flatly.
Things I've noticed off the top of my head:
IGN First video runs at super-smooth 60FPS and is being demo'ed with a PS4 controller. Was the PS4 version ever running at that framerate?
You can discover animals in both videos just by sending out your sonar "pulse". Super easy. In the final game there's a rather tedious "scanning" mechanic associated with discovery. You have to aim the camera centered on them and hold down a trigger for a few seconds.....frustratingly it only seems to work at shorter ranges.
Map markers had towers of light associated with them for easier navigation. That looks really nice and flashy. It also seems like you weren't frequently having to "Pulse" to get markers to stay on screen.....they were there persistently.
Mining was more of a point-and-shoot affair. Most rocks instantly blow up and generate resources. In the final version you're stuck with this beam that you must focus on a rock for many seconds at a time, and it slowly whittles the rock down and overheats a couple times in the process. I presume this change was made so that mining had kind of a different feel from shooting, but man does it look easier and less monotonous here.
There's a cool, giant, multi-level trading post on a planet with ships coming and going. Not sure if those are in the final game, but I haven't really gotten to them yet.
Thruster Fuel does not deplete every time your ship takes off (or at least there's no notification for it).....which leads me to the somewhat larger point of....
Around 12:00 in the IGN video Murray says you can play "Purely for Exploration", "Purely for Combat," "Purely as a Scavanger".....even going so far as to claim that you might be able to play the game without ever setting foot on a planet. At some point I get the sense this might have been an intended goal, that you should be able to play whatever role you want. That's clearly changed. Perhaps pressure to be a more proper videogame made them more tightly integrate all the survival/collection aspects. That's why you're picking up all kinds of stuff to refuel and recharge, dealing with depleted tools and life support systems. As it is, you can't play "purely" for one particular role......but looking at these early videos where there's no discernible economic penalties for joyriding, no cost for basic galactic mobility, it seems that at one point at least "pure" roles were viable. An explorer would simply be able to get credits for exploring, and that cash would be used to fund his exploits around the galaxy.
What are the differences you have noticed between this and other early alpha/beta footage, and No Man's Sky 1.03?
