No Man’s Sky Trailer Today Recaps the Four Pillars

Over the last few weeks, Hello Games and Sony released four No Man’s Sky trailers designed to teach you about the four Pillars of the game: Explore, Fight, Trade, and Survive. In a new trailer today, they’ve rounded up all four Pillars.

Here’s the descriptions for each Pillar:

Explore

There are 18 quintillion planets in the game. Even if each planet was visited at a rate of one per second, it would take five billion years to explore them all – by which the Sun in our solar system would have burnt out, essentially giving the game a near infinite number of worlds to explore!

To help guide players through such a vast number of locations No Man’s Sky has an overarching goal of reaching the centre of the universe, where there are more bountiful resources and more challenging locations to discover. This, however, is just a guide, and players are free to explore the game however they like.

Fight

On a planet, players are equipped with a multi-tool to defend against deadly predator creatures and mine resources. Attacking creatures – aggressive or otherwise – or mining resources will call the attention of the Sentinels, a robotic force who seeks to keep each planet in a natural, undisturbed state. The more you fight back against the Sentinels, the higher your Wanted level, and the tougher they will become – from flying drones to quadrupedal machines, towering walkers and eventually dropships.

Space is also patrolled by the Sentinels, so attacking traders for their valuable goods or scavenging resources from freighters will also see you gaining a Wanted level, with Sentinel police ships coming to defend the natural order.

It’s not just the Sentinels who you need to beware of in space – pirates will swoop on the unwary, requiring you to evade and escape or fight back to defend your cargo.

Trade

Resources are a vital part of exploration, trading and survival. No Man’s Sky has its own periodic table of elements – some familiar to our world, some new and unknown – and each one is used in different ways. Some can be used to craft new items and weapons once the player has learnt the technology.

While planets might be unexplored, they aren’t necessarily uninhabited. Alien races have their own distinct languages, which can be learned a word at a time at ancient structures or through conversing with the aliens themselves. Unlock their vocabulary and your chance of a successful interaction increases, raising your standing with them.

Common resources on one planet could be scarce in another – mining on one planet to sell on another can be a lucrative trade. Players can also craft Products from resources, which can be sold for higher prices – discover a certain race’s preferred Product and you can make a living from supplying them.

Survive

While some planets are beautiful and serene, many have extreme conditions that make survival difficult. Some planets will have extreme temperatures – from freezing lows to scorching highs – while others are drenched in toxic rain, heavily irradiated or completely submerged.

For the unprepared, surviving on planets with extremes will be a challenge. Every second spent exposed in the elements will chip away at your protective shielding, which can be restored by taking shelter or expending resources to recharge it. By upgrading your suit’s technologies, you can survive harsh climates for longer, run faster, jump higher and explore for longer.

Whether you die under the claws of a creature, by the lasers of a space pirate or just succumb to the elements, death will have a real impact on your progress. Resources will be lost and technology damaged as your body is regenerated at your last save point, so make sure to put up a fight!

Hello Games’ Sean Murray hasn’t been tweeting much over the last few days (the team’s been wrapping up the first update), but he did take the time to respond to a couple of questions yesterday:

No Man’s Sky is out next week for PlayStation 4 and PC.

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