The incredibly impressive and ambitious indie title No Man’s Sky just got that bit more awesome – according to Hello Games’ co-founder Sean Murray, visiting every procedurally-generated planet in the game will take over five billion years.
Apparently, in the early stages of development, Hello Games would use a 32-bit number to generate planets in-game. Even at that level, Murray says “with that 32-bit number it would take you four or five thousand years to see every planet if you spent only a second on each one.” However, the internet, being what it is, challenged that claim, so Hello Games took a step further.
So, instead of using a 32-bit number, they opted for 64, meaning that if you spent just one second on each planet, it would take you over five billion years to visit them all. Let’s hope there isn’t a trophy for seeing them all!
No Man’s Sky is looking like a fantastic game. Recently confirmed to be coming to PC as well as PS4, the game is being developed by a tiny team of English developers. At this year’s E3, Sony afforded Murray and the game some of their precious time during the conference to show it off and it was hugely impressive.
Originally published August 17, 2014. Updated April 15, 2018.
