I think the biggest thing I want from No Man's Sky would be a bit more "life" in it. I would like to have the dialogue and conversation choices that Mass Effect 2 had as well as the missions centering on recruiting a crew. The freighter gameplay of the current No Man's Sky is actually rather cool. But, I want to able to walk around my big ship and talk with my crew.

I think if they ever start from square one again with a No Man's Sky 2, I would like the art design to blend the Sci-Fi Illustrator Chris Foss but make some of the aliens more humanoid or human. Sure, you can be/play as a Gek, Korvax, Vy'Keen, or whatever...but you can also be a human. And, while you still learn the alien languages and have the garble at you, on the ship your crew can speak in English (Spanish, German, French, etc.)

Second, I think the star & planetary systems need to be set up more realistically with the planets orbiting their stars and moon orbiting their planets. And, while the game should retain free flight to just point you ship in a direction and fly I think they need a star map view where you see where you are and you see a representation of the star system and you just say where you want to go and the game constructs route that conforms to where that planet is in it natural orbit. Just tossing the planet to one side of the star like jellybeans is fine for the "point your ship that way" current system...but it’s not a convincing sim of a star system. I would rather have a computer plan my flight path if that means the star system could be played out more realistically. Why? Because, I would love to see a Red Hypergiant star system rendered realistically. To see this massive star in the center and these itty-bit planets that are in reality three time the size of Jupiter orbit around it would be a sight to see! The "wonder" and "epic scale" of real stars it totally lost in the current game. So to get that "scale" I would without question make routing through a star system automated. Players still see out the cockpit window as they fly to a planet just the route is planned on a screen instead of just pointing your nose at an object all the time.

Third, I want planets that if they are inhabited have villages, towns and cities or totally without structures except for ancient ruins. The fact that every star system just is littered with few generic structures and alien outposts takes the exploration aspect away from teh player. That game play should be shifted from finding structures to building structures to "start an economy" or "start a settlement. Or, in some case (like 5%) the player finds a already started ecommy with villages, towns, cities and trade-center already established and bustling with aliens. I just see no logic to an exploration game where every system has every planet discovered with discrete single structures and aliens littered around...but that aliens have not laid claim to the worlds, not named anything or seemingly not discovered anything on that plant.