Eli5: How can games like minecraft or no mans sky be essentially infinite, yet take up a very small amount of storage?

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No mans sky is like 18GB or so on my PS4, yet there are 256 galaxies and literally around 18 quintillion planets. It can be played completely offline too, so it isnt coming from some server somewhere

I understand they’re procedurally generated, so they dont even exist until you pass through that area, but even after playing for countless hours and crossing thousands of miles of landmass, the save file is still extremely small

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Anonymous 0 Comments

You have already answered your own question. It’s the procedural generation. The game doesn’t have to save every planet, just the rules on how to create and recreate them. Your save file doesn’t need to save them after they have been generated except for any base structures you’ve built, just their metadata. Think about it this way, what takes up more space? A recipe page or a whole cake?

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