Hello Games’ Sean Murray answered criticisms of his claims that the highly anticipated PlayStation 4 and PC game, No Man’s Sky, is an infinite game with unlimited possibilities. During a presentation at Gamecom 2014, he used simple mathematics to show that while his game might not be infinite, it is indeed very, very, very big. So big, that it might as well be infinite.
No Man’s Sky is a procedurally generated game in which a 32 digit seed number originally determined the planets you will uncover. 2 to the power of this seed number will grant you billions of planets to explore, and if you explore one new planet every second of every day, you might see a repetition after 4,000 years or so.
However, now that No Man’s Sky is one of the most anticipated games of the new generation of console, Murray said the team is thinking of changing the seed number to 64 digits, creating 10 to the power of 19 number of possibilities. With this seed number, you might see a repetition once every 4 to 5 billion years, meaning you will have to search roughly the same amount of time that our own planet Earth has existed.
So again, not infinite. Just very, very, very large. Is some jerk gamer going to sue Hello Games for false advertising this time?
No Man’s Sky will be a timed exclusive for the PlayStation 4 in 2015 before jumping to the PC. No confirmation yet for an Xbox One release. It’s safe to say that this is my most anticipated game of the new console generation, and it’s the main reason I picked up a PlayStation 4.
Via: Destructoid