Therein lies the problem with the simulation aspect of space-oriented games. The vast, vast majority of space is lifeless nothingness.
Everyone likes to imagine that we’ll achieve FTL space travel but what if it takes us much longer than we think it will? I’m not aware if such a game exists, but it seems to me developers should scale back the scope of their space games to single solar systems with like 500-1000 years of human space-faring history, intervention, cultural, and socioeconomic development built into the solar system’s “world” and its lore.
I like the idea of space as a frontier, the vast lifeless expanses and the few habitable parts in between. The fact that Bethesda found a way to make all those lifeless planets actually explorable, even if there is nothing to do there than ambient open world content and resource gathering.
They also said that most of them would be desolate and procedurely generated. They never promised a thousend hand crafted planets.
Therein lies the problem with the simulation aspect of space-oriented games. The vast, vast majority of space is lifeless nothingness.
Everyone likes to imagine that we’ll achieve FTL space travel but what if it takes us much longer than we think it will? I’m not aware if such a game exists, but it seems to me developers should scale back the scope of their space games to single solar systems with like 500-1000 years of human space-faring history, intervention, cultural, and socioeconomic development built into the solar system’s “world” and its lore.
I like the idea of space as a frontier, the vast lifeless expanses and the few habitable parts in between. The fact that Bethesda found a way to make all those lifeless planets actually explorable, even if there is nothing to do there than ambient open world content and resource gathering.