No Man's Sky

I dunno if I'll ever go back to play this game because I played it when it launched and it was a TURD.

--- UPDATE 12/24/2020 after completing

Wow they really improved the game a ton. I was addicted for a solid 35 hours to fully updated version.

Exploring is a blast. The grind was pretty addicting. Discovering alien languages was a real fun part.

The planets and space are gorgeous.

That all being said it fails to really rise above and do anything truly original. The lore is pretty bland and weak. The whole "the universe is a simulation" thing was ok. The grind is tedious. Base building is meh. The planets become fairly repetitive after a while.

There are also gripes in the pacing. I tried to go off and do my own thing very early on which was super fun. And then I found out they kind of gate a bunch of stuff behind story progression. So I spent a ton of time grinding things only to find out that you get it for free if you do the main quest.

Maybe the biggest problem is the lack of a real end game. You can spend a ton of time building up your freighter or hunting for S rank ships which is really cool but ultimately there's no reason. What you get more slots? You can do more damage? I was able to do everything in a B rank ship with almost no upgrades. So ultimately I just don't see the purpose.

In the end it's a fun little theme park for a bit but it's just a bit too shallow for any real staying power.

I will say I love the Gek. Adorable.