Saturday, February 4, 2017

To Infinity And Beyond: The Need for Space Exploration Games


Destiny, No Man's Sky, and Star Citizen. All very different games, but all have something in common. Space Exploration. With the urge for human beings to colonize mars and the revitalization of the Star Wars franchise saga, the hype for space exploration games could not be at a higher level.

Personally, the idea of jumping from planet to planet at FTL speeds and interacting with the uniqueness each planet has to offer is the ideal gaming experience for me. I don't even think the appeal for these games is the fact of the setting is in space, but rather that the player gets to discover something new. It's that, "oh look! I found a new planet and its mine and I get to explore every little detail it has to offer" feeling we all get when we play an exploration/adventure type game. These types of games fulfill that natural human curiosity each of us has that pushes us to discover and explore to our minds desire.

In recent years gaming companies have recognized the communities love for science fiction and the curiosity we humans have for space travel and exploration. We see developments like No Man's Sky that introduces an infinite universe of worlds to discover. On the opposite side of the spectrum we see games in development like Star Citizen that gives players the most realistic space exploration game to date. Lastly, we get a more science fiction view of the space genre in a game like Destiny. All of these very different in nature, but all contribute to the space genre of gaming.



We need more games like this. Developers need to explore these types of games with a more open mind. The rave right now is "Open World" environments, but why not expand that to "Open Universe"? Rather than have a huge open landscape, make it infinite so we can as players can fully envelope ourselves into a game with no borders that has endless opportunities for exploration and discovery.

I could definitely see a mass release of these types of exploration games especially with the progressiveness of the virtual reality technology coming into play. Imagine exploring a galaxy with virtual reality technology. Yeah. It would be incredible. You could be flying through an asteroid belt and physically look to your left to see your left wing nearly scrape the side of a hurdling asteroid. The possibilities are endless. Hopefully, we see these types of games make some great advances in the coming years!

2 comments :

  1. You forgot to mention Elite: Dangerous, one of thebest space exploration games.

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    1. Yes i did, someone else on facebook also mentioned this and i definitely should have said something about it. Personally though, I have been more interested in star citizen and that is what popped into my when i was writing, thanks for checking out the post though!

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