There are two things I mean when comparing a game to No Man’s Sky. The first that comes up much more often now, as in whenever I say a game “pulls a No Man’s Sky”, is when a game releases in a notably incomplete state that’s either a mess of bugs or a lack of content or things meshing together, but then updates over the next year or more to be more like how it should have been at launch. This happens so often now with major studio and publisher releases that the mindset of waiting for a big Steam sale discount is a strong recommendation and not to just save money. I’ve noticed that this also tends to happen with the increased tendency to aim for massive open worlds and all that goes in those, which leads to the other thing.
No Man’s Sky aims to simulate a whole galaxy, and there’s a lot of potential for emptiness there because it’s not like every planet will have things to do on it, it could just be totally barren of observable life like apparently every other planet and such within this solar system as far as current research goes. And while jumping around various planets to see what they are can be a neat concept, for people who aren’t just wanting to see all kinds of odd scenery, it’s pretty boring. Maybe it’s not the intent to be always action-packed with lots of space adventures like you’re playing through Star Trek or Star Wars or whatever other star media, but this comes up as a common complaint even for games that aim to just simulate a fraction of a planet.
While in No Man’s Sky, as well as Starfield’s interpretation of that approach, there are some concessions made to just drop down random native lifeforms on a number of planets that have some potential to support life, and to also nudge that percentage up a bit to show those off more when the galaxy is generated as a starting point, if someone wants more to do than to just scan everything then they’ll have to hunt down random outposts or even cities of sorts, cities which are most likely hand designed and placed in key locations, especially in the case of the latter game.
There’s also the case of the “giant Ubisoft game” as those have been, where there’s a massive world with tons of random collectibles but not a lot to do in most of the world aside from the collectibles. Missions will more than likely take place along certain routes focused in certain major landmarks and cities, at least the ones that aren’t randomly generated. While games have pulled off having giant open worlds, those generally succeed in having plenty to do aside from just find a thing. Maybe there’s a puzzle involved, even just a tiny one, like with all the shrines and Korok seeds in the two Breath of the Wild style Zelda games so far, so collectibles aren’t just a simple checkbox or cash or stat boost as soon as the location is found. The potential for emergent gameplay also helps when a world like that has its elements designed to interact in specific ways as their rules, like flammable or conducting objects and how those exist with the elements, and can then build off each other.
There’s a certain metaphor involving filling a glass versus filling a plate with liquid, where something could cover a short time or small area but really run deep, or something covers a massive time or area but there’s not much to do on average per hour or square whatever distance, and perhaps there’s less volume overall. Then there’s bowls, which can be a decently average depth with a decent amount to do throughout. Regardless of the container’s shape, I’d really like to see things like game updates not be taken for granted for the sake of rushing out incomplete games to be finished later, especially if they’re not going to bother calling things early access when they really should be.
Even the whole early access thing has become a bit of a turn-off in terms of finding games to play, as there’s a lot of cases where I’d like to get invested in playing it, but not until it’s about finished if not outright completed, like with Slime Rancher 2. I only picked up the first game when it was almost out of early access so there was a fair bit to do leading up until they added what counts as an end goal, then they added some extra things after release as well which from what I remember felt more like side activities rather than core essential parts of the game. I played a small amount of the sequel through Game Pass, saw that it felt a lot like the first game with a few things new to the sequel, and decided to not play anymore until it’s finished, when, if I’m still interested by then, I’d likely pick it up on Steam since by that point my Game Pass would be close to expiring anyway, and I’ve generally aimed to use Game Pass more to play stuff I’m less likely to buy outright.
Perhaps I’m just nostalgic for the times when games had to be done when they released, at least as far as console games since PC games did get patches even as far back as the earliest networks or just the ease of writing to floppies. And if a game had a terrible bug show up, it was unlikely it would be patched, which is the unfortunate side of this approach as patches meant redistributing the whole game again with another production run and all that, even if smaller and targeted only to those who sent in their copy to be replaced. Even for a lot of the release lifespan for the PS3 and 360, games generally shipped as done with only some bugfix patches for the most case, aside from the cases where games were split apart into DLC, or had DLC made later. Wii games were more still following the older approach however, as they couldn’t really patch disc games easily, and instead there were a couple cases to fix save files that had gotten into a broken state through special programs downloadable through the shop.
Of course there’s also the consideration of phone games, which have largely become just ways to deposit money into publisher bank accounts with not much to show for it aside from a bigger number, and the design philosophies there have corrupted a significant part of the industry, even going back to when those were just on Facebook’s website. How this ties back into the original topic of games being incomplete or shallow is really just the consideration of cash flow. If a game isn’t making a massive profit against high expectations from the publisher, it’s likely to expect the developer company to cease existing soon after. The pressure to put something out, even if it’s not up to anyone’s standards, is increasingly high just to secure some kind of income, and if that doesn’t happen, then everyone there might be needing to find another job soon, or to make their own jobs by making their own thing, ideally without falling into the same traps that ruined their last project. For a lot of publishers, it’s just more appealing to make the quintillionth or so game-as-a-service than take a risk at something bigger.