I’ve been playing even more No Man’s Sky lately. It’s all because the game is currently playing host to Expedition Three: Cartographers, and I love these Expeditions so much. One of the things that I’ve been slowly realising as I’ve been playing this week is that the game isn’t as lonely as it might first seem. Sure, there’s definitely still a degree of needing to play by yourself to get the core Milestones done, but there’s also part of each Phase that’s just so much easier when a more experienced player comes along to help you out. It’s called teamwork, and I feel like it’s pretty foreign to the game, or at least it has been to me up until now. I think I like it, but I’m just not used to it.
There’s a Milestone in the Expedition that requires you to build a Minotaur Terminal and deploy it. This is a giant walking machine that’s impervious to the environmental hazards of the planet and can move a lot faster than you. Especially if you outfit it with a bunch of upgrades. However, building the Terminal requires some resources that I reckon are impossible to get in this Expedition without completing a few other Milestones first. I think the Expedition is structured this way to keep you completing different Milestones across the entire thing, instead of working through Phase one to five.
I’d been trying to find the rarest resources on the planet for ages, and then I randomly loaded the game up to discover that another player had already built a Minotaur Terminal right next to my base. I was astounded, because I didn’t think it was possible. However, this player proved me wrong, and was able to complete the Milestone just by summoning my Minotaur and walking around in it. I’ve never had this feeling of teamwork in the game before, but I love it. I think what helps is that players are spawning near each other, so there are lots of bases clustered in a single location. This means that you can easily progress while other people are playing, and that’s always going to be the case, so this Expedition gets you close with everyone else in the game.