It's difficult to fathom just how unbelievably huge No Man's Sky actually is. Allegedly containing around 18 quintillion planets, which in theory would take hundreds of billions of years to discover, it's easily the biggest video game in terms of its map size. To call it "open world" doesn't do it justice, as it's more "open universe." Given that, it would be very easy for the developer to sneak in some Easter eggs that may go unnoticed, and one fan seems to have found a nice nod to another beloved game.
In a recent post on Reddit, user skandranon_rashkae uploaded a screenshot from No Man's Sky, which shows a dialogue box between the player and an NPC. Interacting with other characters is the norm, but in this instance, the line being uttered by the traveler is quite unusual. The text in the dialogue box reads, "Traveler has wares, if you have units." Many people seeing this will automatically recognize it as a reference to Skyrim.
For those who aren't aware, the line refers to a very famous quote spoken by the Khajiit traders of Skyrim, which goes like this, "Khajjit has wares, if you have coin." What's even more interesting about this Easter egg is how the NPC even appears to have a cat-like face, which is not something that's typically seen in No Man's Sky. The user who took the screenshot insists that this is genuine, adding that they'd already interacted with the character and this line wasn't uttered. If this is real, which is appears to be, this means Hello Games has obviously paid homage to Bethesda's epic 2011 RPG, and it begs the question whether there are more Easter eggs hidden.
The BAFTA award winning No Man's Sky is arguably one of the greatest redemptive arcs in gaming history. When it first launched in 2016, it was met with severe criticism and even lawsuits after the game contained very little of the content promised in its marketing, and many felt they'd been duped by the developer. However, fast forward a few years and it's a different story entirely. The game is now not only much denser with content, but the studio continues to put out regular and significant updates for free, with the Leviathan patch being the most recent.
Hello Games has started working on its next project as well, though Sean Murray, co-founder of the company, has said that he's learned his lesson about overhyping something before release. It's not known what the studio's next game will be, but it's unlikely to top the sheer size of its space exploration title.
No Man's Sky is available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, with a Switch version also in development.