It is safe to say that No Man's Sky is the most anticipated video game that is not tied into any franchise. If you are not familiar with it, No Man's Sky is poised to be the next big thing with gaming as it is an open world space exploration game where the player can get in the cockpit of a starship and visit more planets than can be counted. There is recent news showing that the release date could be very soon, and in competition with another video game franchise of Halo 5: Guardians.
According to Inverse, No Man's Sky could be coming sooner rather than later as it could arrive October 27, just days before Halloween and about ten days to this writing. Considering the scale of this space exploration game, most expected it to have a release date that would be later rather than sooner.
Apparently, Amazon UK customers, as well as a writer for Forbes, were told that their orders for the game would arrive on that date. The game director Sean Murray also made a recent appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and most guests on these late night shows are not known for making visits unless they have a product that customers can access sometime soon.
It would certainly be a huge surprise if No Man's Sky came out this early, but many believe that Sony will give a definite release date for No Man's Sky during Paris Games Week on October 28th through November 1st.
Of course, the biggest issue with having No Man's Sky being released on October 27th is that it is in direct competition with another space-related video game that will be released that day: Halo 5: Guardians, a game that is exclusive to Xbox One. Considering that Sony has gone out of its way to make certain that No Man's Sky will be coming only to PlayStation 4 and not Microsoft console, this could be a battle of the brands of space games for Sony and Microsoft. Since these are space games, perhaps it can be better rephrased as Yoda speaks: Begun the space game wars have.
If there is going to be a winner between these gaming franchises, it looks like it might be No Man's Sky. Sure, Halo is a well-developed franchise that has kept Microsoft making serious video game money for over a decade, but the issue is that players of Halo 5 will only explore new worlds in a galaxy that is limited only to the storyline of Halo 5: Guardians.
Even though the storyline involving iconic Master Chief looks interesting, it cannot compete with the diversity of No Man's Sky. The whole reason for the game is to put the player into the realm of space explorer, with a universe that contains over 18 quintillion worlds according to Australian Network, which is more than a single player can visit in his or her own lifetime. No doubt there will be other expansions and downloadable content to make this experience even richer.
It would appear that No Man's Sky is positioned to change gaming as we know it, and if can beat the big franchise of Halo 5: Guardians, then there will be no telling how big this game will be. In fact, it could become so big that Xbox players will demand it come to that platform. There are still no definite plans to bring No Man's Sky to Xbox One, but it is slated to arrive on the PC, possibly on the same day it arrives on the PS4.
