We really think that what No Man’s Sky is showing is the fall of the trend of the whole “open world” idea. Note: We are not saying there will be no more open world games. We are saying that this is the end of the idea that having a huge open world is the most important thing in a game.
No Man’s Sky shows that gamers are getting bored of the whole open world idea
No man’s sky shows that if all you care about is having the biggest world possible, it’s going to be really bland. Minecraft did this right. They had an idea similar to NMS. Have a procedural world generator and a gigantic world. With differing types of environments. Minecraft succeeded because first of all, the world also has randomly generated structures, like mine shafts, caves, strongholds, and it also has the nether. The player also has a massive amount of control over the game world.
In NMS, all you can do is mine resources, catalog animals, and learn language stuff. The foundation update improved the game a bit in the right direction. But way too late. We feel what No Man’s Sky should have been is Astroneer. In Astroneer, you have a more Minecraft-like world, that you have more control over. They started off right, knowing that base building is the most important part. It is probably too late for Hello Games, though. And they have begun to bring about the demise of this faulty “open world is most important” ideology.
Source: God is a Geek