No Man's Sky permadeath story reminds me of the beauty of video games
A Reddit user shared a hauntingly beautiful end to their permadeath run in No Man's Sky. The story reminded me why video games are so amazing.
Sean Murray, the creator of No Man’s Sky, shared a hauntingly beautiful story from a player on the game’s subreddit. This post made it feel like a genuine space exploration game for the first time since I heard about No Man’s Sky about ten years ago. These days, everyone knows the comeback story of this galactic survival game from developer Hello Games. No Man’s Sky has won several Game Awards for best ongoing game since it launched in 2016. There have been so many new substantial updates that it’s hard to keep track anymore. I’ve always known that No Man’s Sky is a great game now, but this post perfectly captures what I remember imagining when I saw the first trailer.
This No Man’s Sky post is hauntingly beautiful, and reminds me why I love video games
The post comes from u/Sprinted_Ad3028 and is titled “RIP my permadeath file beautifully.” In permadeath mode, the player cannot simply respawn if their character dies. This mode can be found in many other games and is a common way to up the challenge, immersion, and tension in a game like this. The player must be careful, ensuring they always have the necessary resources, or they will have to start from the beginning, losing all progress.
The post includes a short video of the player staring out the windshield of their spaceship as lightning strikes across the horizon of a dark planet. The description reads: “I landed on the wrong planet in my permadeath save. I’m on a tiny pillar of rock, surrounded by deep ocean in every direction. I’m out of launch fuel, and I have no ferrite. I can only survive a few seconds outside the ship before the toxic air kills me…” This story, paired with the visuals, evokes the helplessness of being lost in space in a way I’ve never seen in video games, movies, or TV shows. No Man’s Sky’s creator Sean Murray understands the situation, simply replying with a solemn salute.
The post sums it up with one final line: “all I can do is sit in my ship, watch the lightning storms, and wait for my oxygen to run out.” It must be heartbreaking in a situation like this, where the person likely spent hours, if not dozens of hours, reaching this point. But that’s what makes video games beautiful, not just that it is art, but that you get to be part of the art. This person ended up in this situation with a lot of bad luck, but also thanks to the specific decisions they made while playing. It’s not a situation that will happen again to anyone else in the same way.
Something else that blew me away was the responses. Not because they were inexplicably mean or rude, as you might expect on social media, but because of people's ideas for solutions to this in-game problem. I think there is an argument that this unique problem does not need a fix, but I couldn’t help but daydream about the mechanics people came up with. One response suggested: “Imagine being able to put out an SoS signal in game and it pinging one random player that is online and in their ship able to receive this SoS and it’s just coordinates that they can navigate to to try and help in this situation…” In a game like No Man’s Sky that has received so many significant updates, it’s incredible that there are still great ideas that could add to the whole experience.
Someone else in the replies linked to the original Reddit post. Many of the top comments ask the player for their location or to send a friend request so they can try to save them. Unfortunately, it seems like this character did not make it. But what a way to go out. Staring off into the horizon as lightning flashes. It’s easy to see it as a “failure” or a “game over,” but I get the sense that this experience will be far more memorable than if they had enough fuel to fly away.
“Emergent experiences” has become an overused phrase, almost sounding like a meaningless corporate buzzword rather than something meaningful that games strive for. But when a game’s systems all come together to create truly unique experiences like this, it still strikes that chord somewhere in my heart that loved sharing my unique gaming stories years ago when I was still bringing a Game Boy to lunch.
