● You start on a random planet. Planet may be tough, may be easy. It's procedural.
● 90% of the planets are barren of life, emulating our actual universe. 10% will have life/civilization/story elements/etc.
● But every planet, no matter how barren of life, has resources for you to gather. You need these resources to continue your journey deeper into toward the center of the galaxy. Fuel, ship parts, cargo to sell, etc.
● The more resources you gather, the more you screw with the ecosystem, the more you gain the attention of a mysterious 'robot' protector that is meant to keep the balance in the universe and prevent destruction of ecosystems.
● The longer you harvest a planet, the tougher the robot guards they send at you - there are bipedal ones and ones that walk on four legs, but there's a multitude of different types.
● The goal of the game is to get to the center of the galaxy. Something mysterious is going on there, and you're trying to find out what it is. The closer you get to the center, the tougher the game gets - more enemy fleets, more enemies in space, more enemies on planets. Tougher evolved life.
● Each solar system has space stations you can go to. The bigger the solar system, the bigger the space station. Bigger the space station, the better equipment you can get there. You can follow any ship you see in space back to their space station of origin and buy the ship, for example.
● But you also can buy a host of other items that speed up resource gathering, ability to deal with enemies, ship upgrades, etc.
● There are portals - like you saw in the trailer - that once entered, will put you into a completely different part of the universe. What will be on the other hand is a complete mystery, but some will lead to great secrets.
● The narrative is there, but the game is made so that you never have to actually follow it if you don't like. It CAN be a 'walking simulator', it CAN be a game where you gather resources or make a planet your home base. But the goal is, and it takes 40-100 hours approximately to do it, is to find out what's going on in the center of the universe.
● There is a messaging service that you can use to talk to other players, but it's very possible you can pass another player and never even realize it's a real person. How social you want to get is up to you.