Most of the time, starting a video game is a fairly simple process.
You put the disc in. It installs. You click play. You get taken to the start screen or a menu. Then, you usually press a button to get going.
No Man's Sky is also like that, but at first glance, it's a little more confusing. In fact, it's confusing enough that it has managed to throw more than a few gamers for a loop upon trying to start the game. Here's why.
The game boots to an almost completely empty white screen. In the middle of the screen is the text "Initialize ..." with a small square icon underneath it. That's it.
Some players, confused, thought the game had frozen and tried restarting their console. Others simply sat on the blank screen for upwards of 10 minutes, thinking the game was still loading or installing. Little did they know that all they needed to do was hold down the square button on the PlayStation 4 controller to "initialize" the game and start No Man's Sky proper.
A PSA on the No Man's Sky subreddit now reads: "Hold Square to Initialize." Several players took to the subreddit to voice their confusion and eventual embarrassment upon learning the simple solution to their start-screen woes. Below is what the actual first screen of the game looks like.
"Been waiting 7 mins, came to reddit, feel mentally challenged now," one player writes. "Thank you so much."
"I just bought a ps4 to play no mans sky, usually an Xbox guy so when I seen the square I didn't think of the button lol," writes another. Yet another commenter laments the fact that they wasted 10 minutes of their life starting at the white screen before figuring out what to do. Some players found the text and square on the screen so small that they didn't even realize there were words on the screen to begin with.
Initial troubles aside, folks seem to be having a fun time exploring No Man's Sky's nearly limitless universe. Just don't do it too fast. Also, if you have yet to pick up the game for yourself, be sure to check out this guide to all the various No Man's Sky preorder bonuses so you can get the most out of your purchase.
