Some disappointment is inevitable once you've visited a handful of planets and started to see the limits of the algorithm. The parameters of weirdness in No Man's Sky have been quite strictly defined, and it gets repetitive. Look, here's another world of dog-things and dinosaur-things and little lumpy green groundhogs, of rock arches and caves of glowing minerals. There are limits to what Hello Games' artists can create, even if there are no limits to what the algorithm can do with it - and actually, if you want the game to look this good all the time, even the algorithm's style is going to be cramped. So a certain ennui does descend as you make your tenth, fifteenth, twentieth planetfall.
But then something great happens. As you get deeper into the game, you start to understand the algorithm's language, and gain a keener appreciation of the parameters at work. Once you've visited a planet with an extreme weather system, where you need to sprint from your starship to nearby shelter; once you've discovered planets barren of all life, or rich in certain rare minerals you need, or infested with aggressive security drones that hound you if you so much as mine some iron; once you've had to puzzle out how to island-hop across an ocean planet where fuel for your ship's launch thrusters is a rare find; then you start to really understand the character of a new world, and what it means for your endless journey into the stars. Land on a world with a mild climate, relaxed drone security, rich deposits and blue skies after a long string of harsh planetary encounters and you will feel the greatest joy of the explorer: the exultation of a great find.