One of the most highly anticipated games of 2016 is "No Man's Sky" from Hello Games. The title allows players to use their spaceship and visit billions of planets in a galaxy. However, according to a report from GamesRadar, it is possible many places in the game will never even be seen.
This is due to the game's structure. "No Man's Sky" utilizes a complex mathematical algorithm to build its universe instead of a group of indiivudal coders designing each planet in the game. This is referred to as a procedurally generated game, akin to "Minecraft" and "Terraria."
With the game's AI creating random worlds by the billions, it is speculated that many of the created worlds will never be discovered despite the possibility of thousands of players discovering new places every day.
Back in 2014 Sean Murray, co-founder of developer Hello Games, told IGN, "with that 32-bit number it would take you four or five thousand years to see every planet if you spent only a second on each one." To date, the game has over 18 quintillion worlds.
While the game isn't infinite by any means, it is incredibly expansive. He further explained that it would take a person billions of years in order to visit each planet and make a complete list of every location within the game.
As a matter of fact, a post on the official PlayStation Blog points out Hello Games deployed their own robotic sattelites in the game to explore the planets and take photos. These photos are the same ones being used for many of the promotional ads for the game.
"No Man's Sky" recently launched a trailer that confirmed a June 2016 release date for the PS4, with a PC port either launching simultaneously or immediately after. No word for a Mac or Xbox release has yet been announced.
