Sometimes I feel similarly about Elite: Dangerous. Disclaimer: I haven’t played NMS because E:D gets all my spacetime tokens and I’m fine with that. “Community goals” (high payout limited time events) get me to play because it gives me purpose for a week. For the most part though, I like coming to it for an hour or two when I want to take a break from story-laden games. Hunt pirates for an hour, fly out of inhabited space and explore for an hour (well, an hour out, an hour there per session, an hour back next time), or just chill with music and asteroid mining.

So I do wish there was a plot at times, but I do appreciate it for mixing up the routine with simple cruising