'No Man's Sky' release date: gameplay footage out

No Man's Sky website

Game developer Hello Games is building up the hype for the impending release of "No Man's Sky." However, plenty of gamers are still in the dark about the massive space-age exploration title other than the vague idea that it is supposed to be huge. 

To make the gaming community more aware about what to expect from the upcoming title, Sean Murray, founder of Hello Games, sat down with gaming site IGN and showcased an 18-minute gameplay footage. He showed how the game's interface looks, and how interactions are made with each button press. The clip also shows how each menu looks like.

While not much can be previewed in the video, it lets viewers have a taste of "No Man's Sky." The footage features exploration of the terrain and environment in a sample in-game world. It focuses on mining and crafting in-game items, particularly weapons and ships. Murray discussed that the procedural system for the game works in crafting and upgrading in-game items, not just in spawning new worlds. This system allows in-game items to be created in a unique fashion, with the developer mentioning almost "hundreds of thousands" of possible variants – meaning that almost no two items will look exactly alike. 

The footage also shows how players can rake in units, the currency for the game used to purchase in-game items and upgrade weapons and ships. In discovering the environment in a particular world, players need to identify both normal and rare species in the terrain, and report their findings in a central database. The amount of units that would be paid for the discovery depends on how rare the species is.  

"No Man's Sky" has no definite release date yet, but it is expected to come out before the year ends.