No Man's Sky release date confirmed, trailer revealed

Players are getting ready to explore 18 quadrillion planets

A new trailer for the PlayStation game No Man's Sky has emerged up on YouTube following an appearance by a man named Sean Murray on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Mr Murray is Managing Director of Hello Games, the British indie games studio that has developed the new adventure game. Set in space, it takes place in a universe that includes a staggering 18 quintillion planets. That's 18 zeros.

This is made possible by the use of what's called a procedurally generated deterministic open universe. In essence, a method of creating data algorithmically rather than manually.

Many of the planets will feature their own unique lifeforms and by exploring, players will gain information that they can upload to The Atlas; a universal database that will be shared with other gamers. When you discover something new, you get to name it.

Players can also obtain materials and blueprints to upgrade their equipment and purchase a variety of starships and space craft, allowing them to travel deeper into the centre of the galaxy, or trade with other ships.

"Even if a new planet was discovered every second, we'd all be long dead before they were all found," Ms Murray said. "We are constantly surprised. We will find creatures and trees that we never knew existed, we will find life in places that we never expected."

"I thought Morgan Freeman was God," Colbert joked. "But you're actually the second God I've had on my show."

Initially announced in late 2013, the game has remained in the background for nearly two years. The Colbert appearance was the biggest preview the studio has given since the E3 gaming expo in Los Angeles this past summer.

The new trailer features the voice of Rutger Hauer, with an opening monologue that could be considered a parody of his well-known lines from the movie Blade Runner. "I've seen things..." he says, "...a few things before." Meanwhile the footage features impressive graphics from a cockpit perspective of space cruisers and asteroid fields.

No Man's Sky is set to launch around June next year, exclusively for the Sony PlayStation 4. The price has not been set yet.