Hello Games Talks About Stars, Natural Disasters, and Factions

The planets as well as stars can vary dramatically.

With No Man's Sky having more that 18 quintillion explorable planets, head of developer Hello Games, Sean Murray, shared some new information about the different stars, natural disasters, and factions that will be in No Man's Sky.

"We have a variety of different types of star, some of which are super rare, and you'll start to realize they'll tend to offer certain opportunities," he explained. "In the videos already out there, as I zoom through the Galactic Map, you get glimpses of different types, sizes, and colors of stars, and, more interestingly, different formations."

Murray also answered a question about whether or not the game would include space phenomena such as black holes and supernova. He stated that these must have some sort of gameplay justification for them to exist in the game, and that No Man's Sky isn't trying to be a space simulator. But he also didn't rule out their presence in the world. "The rule we've set ourselves is that it's a game first, not a simulation," he wrote. "Space has to be fun, and everything you find in it should offer interesting ways of playing. So for instance, a black hole could be a really cool gameplay element, but maybe a supernova isn’t so much..."

Additionally, when asked about natural disasters, Murray revealed that the game will certainly feature some types of natural catastrophes. Although he once again qualified his answer by saying that No Man's Sky isn't meant to be a simulator, he confirmed that storms and other weather events will appear. "Rain, dust storms, snow, blizzards, storms, and a bunch of other things [are] possible," he explained. "There are also more alien weather types, effectively like radioactive and toxic hazards, and atmospheres made from different compositions to ours."

No Man's Sky will launch simultaneously on PlayStation 4 and PC, but Murray said that Hello Games is still not ready to talk about when the game will release.