No Man’s Sky is upon us – at least, for those on PlayStation 4 – and one need only take a glance at YouTube or Twitch to find hundreds of budding explorers mapping out the vast expanses of Hello Games’ universe.
But with the advent of new gaming hardware – specifically the confirmed PS4 Neo, which looks set to be revealed next month – it could make for a “fundamentally” different experience in No Man’s Sky, Studio Founder Sean Murray told The Daily Star.
“If you play another game and if they do a remaster of that game, what they will do is up-res the textures and things like that. That’s because the base geometry, the base shape of the world, the way of playing is totally like lost, basically. 100’s of people have worked on it thousands of hours to create what you see.”
Much of that comes down to the procedural nature of No Man’s Sky, with the game able to generate flora, fauna, wildlife and even entire planets based on a pre-set algorithm. That allows for countless permutations of worlds and star systems to explore, but if and when Hello Games’ title becomes available for PS4 Neo, players could be in for a much more immersive experience.
“For our game it’s procedurally generated. So more powerful hardware doesn’t just mean upgraded textures or a higher framerate. It means we can fundamentally change the experience. You can have – and you’ll see this from our patch notes – we’re able to change huge things in the universe, because we have complete control. With more powerful hardware, we can have more trees, more leafs on those trees. The density or immersion of worlds, or new types of worlds could exist.”
Fending off reports of technical jitters on Sony’s current-gen system, No Man’s Sky is available on PlayStation 4 across North America and Europe. PC players can expect the space title to arrive on Friday, August 12.
