Here's something I didn't expect about No Man's Sky. The game is many things to many people: a space simulator, a survival game, an exploration game, and to some people a disappointment. I expected all those things, including the disappointment (though, I admit, not the vehemence and the organized mass trolling of its expression). If you know where to look, you'll find the game is even self-conscious enough to be a life-as-a-simulation simulator. Yet because some people believe they were misled as to what the game was going to deliver, they re-dubbed it No Man's Lie. And it is! Sort of. But for reasons very different from the ones they are expressing. Let me explain.
Here's the thing I discovered during my own explorations, and through observing the explorations of others. No Man's Sky is actually an existential crisis simulator! That sounds unlikely and even pretentious, and I certainly didn't expect it, but that's indeed what the game is, at least in part. It quite suddenly lays bare many of the internal arguments that philosophers of the last two centuries have discussed. Indeed I like to think what Albert Camus might have made of it when the game's Sisyphean core is revealed.
I can honestly understand if that's too real for some people's comfort. The message is "It's not possible to find the meaning of life; it's only possible to give meaning to life, and each person is free to do that for themselves." The game's two main goals - the achievement oriented Getting to the Center of the Galaxy, and the more religious cult feel of following the Atlas path - may both turn out to be less fulfilling when achieved than many people would want, and it may leave them with a sense of "What now? Back to the grind of survival?" Both goals are indeed lies.
And I see that as good! They are lies that reflect life, as what's really important is how you react. Albert Camus wrote that physical suicide (in game terms = rage quit) because life without meaning is not worth living (in games terms = not worth playing) must be rejected, and that philosophical suicide by abandoning reason and turning to God as Kierkegaard did (in game terms = concentrating on the Atlas path) must also be rejected. What to do instead? Ah well, you'll have to read Camus to see for yourself! And I could go on pretentiously pontificating, but I won't; I'll just carry on enjoying the game.
Here's the thing I discovered during my own explorations, and through observing the explorations of others. No Man's Sky is actually an existential crisis simulator! That sounds unlikely and even pretentious, and I certainly didn't expect it, but that's indeed what the game is, at least in part. It quite suddenly lays bare many of the internal arguments that philosophers of the last two centuries have discussed. Indeed I like to think what Albert Camus might have made of it when the game's Sisyphean core is revealed.
I can honestly understand if that's too real for some people's comfort. The message is "It's not possible to find the meaning of life; it's only possible to give meaning to life, and each person is free to do that for themselves." The game's two main goals - the achievement oriented Getting to the Center of the Galaxy, and the more religious cult feel of following the Atlas path - may both turn out to be less fulfilling when achieved than many people would want, and it may leave them with a sense of "What now? Back to the grind of survival?" Both goals are indeed lies.
And I see that as good! They are lies that reflect life, as what's really important is how you react. Albert Camus wrote that physical suicide (in game terms = rage quit) because life without meaning is not worth living (in games terms = not worth playing) must be rejected, and that philosophical suicide by abandoning reason and turning to God as Kierkegaard did (in game terms = concentrating on the Atlas path) must also be rejected. What to do instead? Ah well, you'll have to read Camus to see for yourself! And I could go on pretentiously pontificating, but I won't; I'll just carry on enjoying the game.
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