What Game is Bigger Than No Man‘s Sky in 2024? None.

With its revolutionary procedural generation technology empowering over 18 quintillion unique planets across 255 galaxies, No Man‘s Sky remains unrivaled in scale, scope and endlessly dynamic worlds among current and upcoming video games as of 2023.

As an industry veteran and avid gamer, I have yet to see any project match Hello Games‘ awe-inspiring achievement of near infinite worlds with such diversity.

The Allure and Future of "Impossibly Big" Games

Yet ambition persists to surpass No Man‘s Sky in the space simulation genre. The allure of exploring unbounded cosmic frontiers with near infinite surprises proves powerful. And with procedural generation, this unprecedented scale is – in theory – now possible.

Developers aiming to overtake NMS face technological and design barriers:

• Computational limitations restrict detail and complexity of algorithmically created worlds, hampering visual splendor and diversity of interactions
• Crafting rewarding, high quality gameplay within mostly empty procedural worlds proves challenging
• Striking the optimal balance of scope and substance remains an elusive holy grail

Still, I believe "impossibly big" will define gaming‘s future as tools improve to automate worldbuilding without sacrificing depth and choice space for dynamic adventures. No Man‘s Sky itself now receives major updates like planetary settlements, mechs, volcanoes and enhanced biome diversity – addressing early criticism of repetitive planets.

Criteria Beyond Raw Scale

We must also analyze dimensionality, density, variety, mystery, customization and the underlying gameplay experience.

No Man‘s Sky presents a chilled solo journey across planets rich with color but lacking intricate alien civilizations or complex interconnected ecosystems. Some may prefer smaller sandboxes like Star Citizen promising intricately designed worlds, deep social interactivity and a vibrant living universe.

For sheer planet quantity and encourages aimless wandering, nothing touches No Man‘s Sky‘s Quintillion-planet metaverse. But competitors like Worlds Adrift (now defunct) revealed that smaller, denser worlds with physics, destruction and building can facilitate more dynamism than vast static landscapes.

Let‘s not forget Minecraft‘s towering achievements allowing boundless terraforming and construction flexibility unmatched even by NMS‘s universe scale.

The Future: Can Any Game Realistically Eclipse No Man‘s Sky?

Surpassing 18 quintillion worlds demands inconceivable data and algorithms. I estimate procedurally generating ~200 billion planets, each equivalent to Skyrim or GTA5, may approach computational limits even for leading AAA studios.

For indies like Hello Games, far smaller but highly intricate worlds benefit from handcrafting. See Outer Wilds or Return of the Obra Dinn.

Still, I speculate 1 trillion unique planets, while drastically dwarfing NMS‘s world count, appears vaguely possible for lavishly funded developers like EXPAND building on Hello Games‘ data architectures.

Such projects could incorporate more "Content as Data" asset recombination, streaming worlds to minimize storage, cloud compute distribution, smarter planet tagging, world detail scaling based on player visits and other complex technical innovations to birth staggeringly vast game galaxies.

Alas, quintillions of worlds likely remains firmly in No Man‘s Sky‘s grasp as the holy grail of digital universe scalability for the foreseeable future. Like peak Mount Everest, its monumental achievement of endless procedural breadth may not be surmounted for years until computing hardware fundamentally transforms.

For now, no upcoming game matches the dizzying cosmic scale and exploratory freedom of Hello Games‘ indefatigable NMS engine. It remains the premier destination for virtual voyagers ready to lose themselves among impossible constellations spanning light years in every direction.