In my experience the sheer size of the galactic map and the preposterous number of planets is good for a wow moment when you first see it, but it does tend to give a bit of a false impression. This is not a game of galactic domination or huge-scale war. This is a game about one single, tiny person in an impossibly large, mostly empty cosmos, and in that sense the scope is actually quite focused.

Starting on an outer planet with a wrecked ship, you're thrown in the deep end of No Man's Sky's interlocking survival, exploration and collecting systems.

Even when you eventually grasp the means to escape this solar system and explore the galaxy beyond, your focus will always be much closer to home as you constantly need to keep yourself alive by managing your life support, environmental protection, health and ship systems.

To keep your systems in check and upgrade to newer versions that let you explore further and more efficiently, you'll be using a laser to mine precious elements from the various planets. The minute-to-minute gameplay reminds very much of something like Minecraft, and some will find it repetitive and formulaic.

Personally I find circumnavigating the huge planets to be much more enjoyable than I expected, in a chilled-out kind of way.

Whenever issues arise — be it the painfully small inventory you start out with or running out of fuel on an inhospitably frozen planet — there's always a solution you can figure out. There's a certain slow excitement to working out new ways to be effective all on your own, and working towards goals that you know will open up exciting new possibilities.

At a macro level, No Man's Sky wants badly to be a simulator of exploration in "the final frontier", an expression of the thrilling otherness of unexplored and uncolonised worlds.

Since the planets have been generated by computer algorithm — not designed and crafted by human hands — it's true that you'll be exploring places nobody else has ever been. The main way of earning currency, in fact, is naming and cataloguing new areas, plants and creatures from each planet (which are also generated by algorithm).

These discoveries are uploaded to the game's main server, so at some point it's possible you'll come across a solar system, planet and creatures some other player has already named.

Over time you will learn to recognise patterns in the way the worlds and their contents are constructed, as there's obviously only so many terrain types, plant shapes, colours and creature combinations to go around.

Yet there's a satisfaction in the gradual understanding of these rules as well, for example you'll eventually become adept at understanding, when looking for a certain element, whether or not it's worth exploring a cave or how valuable a planet will be based on its proximity to the system's sun.

The general beauty of the game's low-fi, colour-saturated landscapes, awe-inspiring space fields and hypnotising synth-metal soundtrack did occasionally have me zoning out while searching for points of interest, in a good way. The vary randomness of the environments occasionally works to make stunning or incongruous images, especially as other planets and celestial bodies can be seen on the horizon from planet-side. All this goes some way to balancing out the fact that you'll sometimes find yourself on a very familiar planet doing very familiar things.

To keep you motivated the game offers an optional objective of getting to the centre of the galaxy, something that will require increasing upgrades to your warp drive and hazard protection. Generally, though, you can play the game however you like.

Adventurers will find mysterious artifacts and various aliens littering the worlds providing narrative in the form of sci-fi novel-style text. Spending time amongst the aliens will result in your gradually understanding their various languages.

If you're the mercantile type, ancient technology and sparse alien dwellings — as well as orbiting freighters — provide recipes you can follow to craft powerful new gear, and can also serve as shops to buy and sell your stuff.

There's room for swashbucklers too, as you can hunt and kill the creatures of any planet, or dogfight with any AI-controlled ships you see overhead. Every planet has robotic guardians that will rise up to challenge if you if you cause too much damage though.

One disappointing aspect of the game is that indications you're part of a shared, connected world are few and far between. Being able to discover and name new things is fun, but as it stands you'll never know if someone else comes later to follow in your footsteps.

It's also unclear whether you can make a real impact on the galaxy, say by wiping out a species of animals for good or destroying a massive freighter and making it unavailable to other players.

Many online have expressed disappointment that you don't see other human players roaming the galaxy, and can't meet up with friends to explore together, but I think being a lone speck of dust speaks much better to the rest of the game's themes. Either way, as a game world that lives primarily online, changes are sure to be made over time.

Though plainly a game that some will love and others will find intolerable, No Man's Sky is a technical marvel, even if all you consider is the ability to explore a galaxy of 18 quintillion planets and fly seamlessly from outer space into the atmosphere of a planet and land anywhere upon it.

The gameplay design — open, systems-filled and nerdy as it is — is the part that will prove most divisive, and those after an action-packed sandbox or power fantasy should steer clear.

No Man's Sky is out now on PlayStation 4 and PC.