The IGN First month of April continues with a new No Man's Sky video. This time it's a time lapse of an entire day on an alien world. While this is cool in its own right, it raises some intriguing questions about the stellar mechanics of the game.
For starters, the video supposedly tracks an entire 24 hours on this planet, so are we to assume that an hour in No Man's Sky is the same as a terrestrial hour in the real world? Very few games have accurate day-night cycles as most players won't stay in a game for a full 24 hours, but No Man's Sky might be making its planetary systems cosmically accurate.
Of course this raises another question: do all planets in No Man's Sky have 24 hour days? To be fair it's not an unusual orbital period; both Earth and Mars have roughly 24 hour days right here in our own solar system. But if every planet has a day like that it would be wildly inaccurate.
What about crazy planets like hot Jupiters that are so fast and close to their sun that their year lasts a few hours? Or weirdo retrograde planets like Venus, where it spins backwards really slowly so a day lasts longer than a year? Or tidally locked planets that face the sun all the time, so one side is effectively day forever and the other side is eternal night?
It's questions like these that make me so eager to play No Man's Sky.
