Despite the immeasurable hype that's surrounded it since it was first revealed back in December 2013,No Man's Skyhas remained a fantastic mystery, a dazzlingly multi-colored enigma, a sci-fi shooter-cum-puzzler with no pre-release spoilers to really write home about. The Hello Games-made explore-'em-up, born in a small studio (and probably a boozer or two) in Guildford, UK, promises near-infinite gameplay—procedurally generated planets mean that it'd take the user
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500 billion yearsto see every possible outcome of all the mathematics going on under the hood, based on spending a single second on each new world, some 18 quintillion of them. And that's been the hook during the game's gestation, that incredible size.
Hello Games is hoping that the wonder of being the first person to step foot on a freshly generated landscape will drive the player onward to further discovery, without a blinking marker on a HUD to indicate where the next telegraphed point of progression is. Further details remain vague: We know that many people can be playing together online, albeit potentially light years apart from one another at all times, and that there will be alien races to trade with, and regulations to stay on the right side of when mining for resources. Beyond that, information's on the threadbare side, especially when it comes to the plot. But Hello has repeatedly implied there is one, that there is an ultimate ending to the game, at the center of a universe that the player begins his or her campaign on the extreme fringes of.No Man's Sky is now finished, its development complete—the game has, to use the correct industry terminology, gone gold. Director Sean Murray tweeted as much yesterday, July 7: "It's happened. No Man's Sky just went gold. I'm so incredibly proud of this tiny team. 4 years of emotions."The same day, I received an advance copy of the game's soundtrack, written and performed by electronics-get-riffy instrumental foursome 65daysofstatic. The ten-track Music for an Infinite Universe is, essentially, a new album proper from the Sheffield-formed band, which also happens to be the complete compositions for an incredibly anticipated video game, something of a bonus. That it'll be its makers' biggest-selling LP to date is, surely, a given. And from its first seconds, my mind began tearing away from terra firma, picturing what scenes these songs could be set to in the game itself. Because while a lot of 65days's music is rearranged into soundscapes to match the tempo of No Man's Sky's core gameplay, fuller songs will be triggered by select set pieces, certain semi-scripted events. Important story beats, in other words.
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Through these songs, and their titles, maybe, just maybe, we can begin to piece together what actually happens in No Man's Sky. (Please note that the order the songs appear in below is not the same as they run on the album. Just FYI, likes.)
The cover art to the album in question, released on August 5 via Laced Records.Every journey in every game begins somewhere. I'm feeling that this is the music for that moment, for when your ship first fires up and the hanger door opens before you. This is it, strap in, probably for the rest of your life. Stark piano keys adopt a march atop squealing synths, like motors turning over, shrill and spinning with just-press-go potential. And then it's gone, everything stripped away to leave only silence; the stillness of the biggest black mankind's ever stared out into.We've seen footage of the player having to take down robotic enforcers in No Man's Sky, for getting unruly on a planet's surface. These Sentinels could come in many sizes—we've seen flying versions, and bipedal ones striding toward us with hostile intent. "Monolith" sounds like an encounter with something especially enormous, and particularly deadly. It builds up the layers of tension over its opening two minutes before some heavy drum beats—steady, considered, foreboding—enter, and then the whole piece drops away into a throb. When it picks up speed again, the emotions coming through are exclusively fight or flee, with one of the two options, the preferred one, entirely out of the question. The fuzzy glitchiness of the final minute is alien and inorganic, either a powerful foe pressing the player into desperate measures, or perhaps coming apart under their fire. Long story short: This has got boss encounter written all over it, the enemy potentially one that reveals its powers across various modes of appearance, and lethality.Named, presumably, after science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov, this song of two halves could well come in during your first, no-really-you-can't-skip-it space battle. Its first stage, its first two minutes, would work well as you pick off smaller craft amid an asteroid field; then, after a pause, to take in a sun peeking out from the other side of a strange world you're seeing the for first time, the OMFGwillyoulookatthosethings battleships come into the equation. Here, everything's heavier, to complement the increased volume of the artillery in play. Not that we weren't exploding anyway.
"ESCAPE VELOCITY"
"MONOLITH"
"ASIMOV"
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"RED PARALLAX"
"END OF THE WORLD SUN"
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"HELIOSPHERE"
"BLUEPRINT FOR A SLOW MACHINE"
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That 'No Man's Sky' gameplay trailer of 2014, featuring "Debutante"The long flight, the A to B that you're happy to take at your own pace, no fast traveling permitted. At some point, fairly early in the game, you'll have to stretch the limit of what you know, what you've seen, and take on No Man's Sky's next-level-deep designs. Playtime is over, the training wheels are off, but let's pause for three minutes and bask in chiming guitars that seem to want to speak to the stars themselves, as the screen's extremities fill with interstellar clouds consisting of all the colors of the rainbow. Ergo: This is No Man's Sky's own "Far Away" by Jose Gonzales.A video game's got to have its credits. And here's No Man's Sky's credits music, I reckon. The song feels almost too changeable, too skittish of feeling, to really fit one moment, a single mood, but as a snapshot of everything to come—or that has been—in the game, it's perfect. Which is probably why it was the first of these soundtrack cuts to be made public, by VICE no less, alongside an exclusive 65days mini-mix that you should totally now check out, here.
"HYPERSLEEP"
"SUPERMOON"
A number of soundscapes come with the album, too—at least, they do with certain bundles available. While these are less traditionally "structured," heard in isolation, removed from visual context, they're excellent indicators of the atmospheres to expect in the game itself. Some are Julianna Barwick–like looped delights, others bear significantly sharper teeth and claws, and just occasionally everything takes an unexpected turn for the acidic, Aphex style. Solo piano lines tumble, static rises and crumbles, and feedback cries out into the great ether, hopeful of an echo.It's all great, to be honest, and if its quality serves as a barometer for what to expect from the game it's been made for, every ounce of buzz around No Man's Sky will have been justified, and every hopeful explorer-to-be richly rewarded. There is a lot of danger out there, OK, but we're all going there, regardless.No Man's Sky is released for PlayStation 4 and PC in August – on the 8th in the US, the 9th in mainland Europe, and the 10th in the UK. For further information, visit the game's official website. For more information on 65daysofstatic, pay the band a visit at their own official website.Follow Mike Diver on Twitter.