A story of redemption.
Making promises is a risky business, never more so than when expectations are high. Even though most people know, at least by a certain age, that expectations should be kept grounded, realistic, gamers, as a crowd, often find it hard to cut and measure their expectations within the bounds of realism. I know this because I am one myself and have fallen for my own coterie’s foibles time and again. The reason that gamers are prone to this weakness is because we want to believe, we want to believe hard, and when we are told - sold, in fact - that a title is coming out to satisfy all our gaming cravings, then there are few of us who can hold steady our cynicism against this siren’s song. Because we want to believe. We’re soppy romantics, really.

And so it was with No Man’s Sky.

In reality, this is more of a criticism of the sales and marketing departments employed by games publishers - indeed, by any large company - rather than a criticism of the developers themselves. No, the developers weren’t blameless, of course not, but if we blame them for giving in to the lure of marketing hyperbole and the promise of unrealistic returns of investment, then we must hold ourselves equally culpable. It’s only fair.

No Man’s Sky would have been just another reminder to guard one’s expectations, to fall in love with promises at one’s own risk, but instead, it’s become something else; something more than that, both more positive and more compelling. It’s the story of developers gritting their teeth against the vitriol of a scorned player base, a hostile media back-lash, and memes, countless memes of cynical, sometimes comical, disappointment, to finally deliver the experience that we were sold - that we fell in love with - in the first place. It’s the story of how a creator, if they truly believe in something they have made, should never abandon it, never let it fall by the wayside, gather weeds, choke in the gutters of failed dreams, though it would be so easier to move on to something else, something new, something less trammelled by the tinge of disappointment. This is the story of constant work, of interminable care meted out over years to resuscitate something the world thought beyond hope. This is a story of redemption.

I can only speak for myself here, but I can honestly say that No Man’s Sky, now, doesn’t merely meet my expectations - it surpasses them. With every update, in point of fact. I suppose, in a way, this is my story too: a story of how I learnt that sometime, very rarely, you can believe; you can fall in love; you can hope and not have that hope dashed against reality’s unforgiving shore. At least, if you’re willing to weather the storm for a while. Or two years, in this case. And perhaps there’s a lesson in that, a lesson with a happy ending, for once. And who doesn’t love a lesson in a story, especially a story of redemption?

TL;DR
I love this game, you should too. Buy it, and join me in the stars, where you too can fall in love with your own piece of the untouched sky.

Edit: 11/20 - Almost exactly two years after my original review, and the game continues to evolve and improve with each update. Absolutely outstanding, and always worth coming back to.