The stated aim and goal of No Man’s Sky is to reach the center of the galaxy- but given just ho vast No Man’s Sky is, and how many distractions there are along the way, it is not unreasonable to suppose that that might take a good while.
However, it also sounds like a dedicated player might be able to do it relatively soon- in as little as 20-30 hours, if they really wanted to. Apparently, daymeeuhn on Reddit has gotten the game early and is playing through it, and he was able to share his impressions on the game’s length based on his experiences, noting that by using a specific resource farming method, it might be possible to reach the center pretty soon.
“Around 25-30 hours,” he said. “I’m about halfway there. 30% of the 100% distance has been just from the last few hours alone. With a YouTube video explaining how to do this I think someone could reach the center in no time, 20-30 hours easy.
“They have implemented some questionable design choices that allow you to essentially “farm” Warp Fuel in an endless pattern and just continuously warp at will almost nonstop, if you so desire to take advantage of it. I dunno if this was intentional, or if they just didn’t care, or if HG doesn’t actually have min/max gamers on their testing team to identify this stuff or what but I figured it out rather quickly and I’ve managed to jump pretty far in just a few hours of doing it.”
I mean, I think rushing to the end like that would be missing the point- if it were me, I’d want to stop at and explore literally every single planet. But hey, for those of you who want to beat a game quickly, at least this should come as good news to you. No Man’s Sky launches next week for PlayStation 4 and PC.