I've been thinking about my favorite games lately -- games like Resident Evil 2, Halo CE, the Soulsborne games, Grow Home, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory -- and I realized something. They're simple, homogenous, unscripted, driven by a core set of systems, and they feel good to play. Games like this are immersive for me because they make me feel connected to my avatar, and they make me feel as though I'm just another part of their gameworlds. For me, this is the appeal of No Man's Sky.

In Halo CE, you have a small set of tools that do the same things in all situations. As far as the on-foot controls, you can punch, shoot, crouch, jump, reload, swap and trade weapons, pick up ammo, and press switches. That's about it. The levels are designed as unscripted obstacle courses where you use these tools.

That sounds kind of like, no shit, but hear me out. Every enemy in Halo CE is designed to behave a certain way, and they're simply placed around the levels cleverly. The game never pauses and tells you, "That Elite is making a run for his Ghost!" Instead, you'll exit a structure and see an Elite running toward a Ghost because Bungie's level designers placed the Elite close enough to the Ghost to trigger its AI.

That's as scripted as it ever gets. You kill the same enemies over and over, press switches, and that's it. But it's awesome because the gameplay feels good, and every system/enemy/whatever is well designed.

The Souls games are the same way. You do the same shit over and over, but it's a blast because it feels good, and it's up to you to use the appropriate tool for the task at hand.

For an example of a game like this without combat, in Grow Home, again, you have a small set of tools. You can jump; deploy a parachute or a glider depending on what's equipped; and you can grab and pull things, which is how you climb, interact with switches, and consume things. This is how you interact with the gameworld of Grow Home without exception, and its world is designed with these these things in mind. It's a sandbox with rules and systems that subtly guide you to your goal.

This is the game I see in No Man's Sky. In NMS, you have a small set of useful tools, and the gameworld is an unscripted sandbox designed to incentivize interaction and setting goals yourself. The game never says, "Go on a bad ass mission!" You simply encounter incentives and solve problems. It's an adventure game, but where most adventure games are highly scripted, No Man's Sky is simple, driven by systems. Again, that makes me feel like I'm just another part of the gameworld.