Procedural generation has existed in video games for a while now, and it has its place in game development. But No Man’s Sky probably poisoned the well for a very long time to come, as far as procedural generation in major games goes. Which means that we can sort of understand people’s concerns about anticipated games not featuring procedural generation to any appreciable degree.
One upcoming game, however, that won’t have any procedural generation will be Rare’s upcoming pirate adventure game Sea of Thieves. In an IGN article about the game, it is confirmed that the game’s world will be handcrafted, entirely seamless, and that sailing around the whole world could take 6-8 hours. In other words, none of the problems that have plagued game worlds in recent games – frequent loading, discrete areas, procedural generation – should apply here.
Sea of Thieves will be out next year on Xbox One and PCs running Windows 10.
