Really in two minds over this, although I'm defo still planning on getting it. Depending on how it's done, it could be an absolutely lovely thing to immerse yourself in for a bit, or of pretty limited appeal past the initial curious toe-dipping. I want to really be able to feel the freedom of solo exploration and joy of discovery (which will require constant surprises, so I hope absolutely loads has been held back and not shown in all the promotional frenzy), but also to have a strong sense of other explorers' impact on the galaxy.
I'm more concerned about the seeming lack of 'indirect interaction', of being able to take in the footprints of other human players and add to the 'culture' of the universe, than I am the dearth of traditional game mechanics and direct P2P interactions. I can actually do without having to deal with repetitive online dogfights and tedious trade grinding and such stuff... but I
cannot do without the feeling of being a part of something big that we can all affect, worlds we genuinely actually impact with our discovery of them, as happens in reality. If I die in the harsh wilderness of a planet I was too foolishly adventurous to take proper precautions wandering through, I'd want subsequent better-equipped explorers to be able to find my remains there, witness the litter of my desperate doom. Now
that, to me, is the proper interesting shit of exploratory games - the secret tales to be told by a priveleged intrepid few, who
went there.
Another thing; I had to recently prise myself away from
Bloodborne about two thirds of the way through, because it was becoming stupidly stressful for me and almost all-consuming - I don't need inwardly-screaming stressout sessions from videogames these days, that's really for kids with limited perspectives on life and/or responsibilities. When I think about the world as an adult, I just want to do relaxing things with my free time!
There's something to be said for very zen gaming experiences, I think they have far more therapeutic merit than harsh, ultra-competitive twitchy environments, and I sort of dig that stuff more now. I get warming vibes off the thought of certain game worlds helping individuals with severe PTSD and crippling phobias/neuroses and the like to reconnect with a kind-of "outside" world, something to leave their protective bubble to take part in, and I love games that allow me to help other human players out in ways that aren't completely scripted or involve us both mindlessly bashing shit up, just going through the motions of the stuff you're supposed to do. The notion that I could be effecting a positive emotional impact on some sweethearted autistic-spectrum kid with a fucking shite oppressive home(/school/work)life somewhere in the world, participating in a little soothing fantasy of brave conscientious souls coming to their aid in times of need, redemptive sacrifices, perilous escapades only survived by banding together... that stuff still appeals to me somwhere very deep down.
It's a tiny bit of a missed opportunity if there are no real
Journey-esque occasional forced meetings of anonymous players like that, or it's so rare as to be a far-too-exclusive club. They need to get the balance just right if they have that sort of stuff somewhere in mind(?). I did hear that the developers had been inspired by the more imaginative, unconventional multiplayer implementations of the likes of
Journey and the
Souls series, so I hope that's there in more than just depositing text messages about, and that all their talk of the miniscule probability of encountering any other player is just them trying to dampen down feverish MMO expectations. I'm hoping against hope that it'll become a surprisingly frequent chance occurence, a core feature of the game.
Done beautifully, the zen potential is very promising. "Walking simulators" tend to lack something vital, as player agency is virtually non-existent. Any game that captures that meditative, chill vibe while also giving you more to do than merely floating through everything observing the work of not-so-amazingly-groundbreaking-and-original writers, I'll more than gladly check out early doors. It's much worse when there's also a feeling of being on rails despite the illusion of an open environment to move through, which definitely won't be an issue here. Just like how an essentially very linear game needs to get all its other shit perfectly together to really work (e.g.
The Last of Us), this one will need to deliver fantastically on an entirely different set of design elements to become truly worthy of the excitement generated by the vast unbridled space exploration theme. And it's something that has actually never been perfected before, only promised in brief glimpses during the classic eras of videogames. I have to salute the enormous ambition, but it'll actually be quite miraculous if such a tiny indie studio pull it off - it quite frankly needs to be utterly amazing to hit that sweet spot, in a similar way to how
Witcher 3 is a bloody mindblowing undertaking of game development, but would basically fall apart if it was anything less.
