Recently, I have absolutely fallen head over heels in love with No Man’s Sky. The freedom and options the game provides after the horrific half baked launch it had truly makes the game worthy of the achievement “the best redemption arc in gaming”
In No Man’s Sky, there are “Expeditions”, a separate game save that gives you a series of missions related to the new content and rewards for completing each of these. During a content downtime, a “Redux” of these expeditions comes out which allows players to replay previous Expeditions and reobtain their rewards.
While this might sound similar to Act Rewards, one major difference is that absolutely no previous gameplay is left out to dry or enhanced within these Expeditions. With Acts, certain spawn rates are adjusted to make these rewards easier to obtain, the most infamous example in my eyes being the Morrow’s Peak Outpost spawn rate.
Instead, what if the rewards are given methods or ways to summon/obtain the new content, such as a temporary voyage with no limit to be redone that allows players to undertake familiar framework with the rewards changed to the new content instead? The framework would be familiar to minimize development time and reintroduce options for old gameplay elements.
I personally would do old Merchant Voyages if I could get act rewards for doing them so long as that isn’t the only way for me to obtain said Act Reward; and that’s coming from someone who would rather drink straight vodka than do a Merchant run.
