Did you miss any of last month's four No Man's Sky trailers that examined the game's four pillars? Trade, Fight, Survive, and... okay, maybe we did miss one. No worries though, because a new “roundup” trailer released today covers it all in a high-speed flash of intergalactic action.
No, wait—the fourth video was “explore,” the one that teased an overwhelmingly huge game universe of 18 ramadamadillion (or whatever) planets to play in. Not that anyone is likely to see them all on their way to the center of the universe, but it's a tantalizing promise and hopefully one that, despite dubious-sounding claims about discovering the mystery in an uncomfortably short period of time, the game can live up to.
Anyway, the new trailer covers all the high points of the previous four, and it looks (and sounds) fantastic. Unfortunately, and with all due apologies, we're still not 100 percent clear on the release date. Steam continues to say August 9 (in North America, at least) while the No Man's Sky “about” page says the PC release will happen on August 12; GOG is sticking with “soon,” and Iam8bit's $150 “Explorer's Edition,” with the big box and the spaceship model and all that, will ship in Q3. Four different sellers, four different answers, and neither Hello Games nor Sony have responded to our requests for clarity. We'll let you know if we hear more, but at this point I imagine we'll just have to wait until August 9 and see what happens.
(Interestingly, one part of No Man's Sky is already out: The soundtrack, which was posted on YouTube today by composer 65daysofstatic. It's pretty good stuff—give it a listen here.)