A No Man's Sky player encountered an in-game NPC that looks surprisingly like Samus Aran, the protagonist of the Metroid series. NPCs in No Man's Sky are randomly generated and are thus extremely unlikely to look like any established characters from other franchises, though it still occasionally happens.
No Man's Sky is an action survival game that was first released in 2016 with its prime selling point being that nearly everything in the game was procedurally generated. The game was released to a mixed reception with many players and critics feeling that the title did not live up to the massive expectations that players had for it. In the over six years since, the game has gotten continuous support and updates that have helped its reception improve exponentially. The recent No Man's Sky Interceptor update added a new class of Sentinel Interceptor starships alongside new in-game events.
True to the game's vision, NPCs in No Man's Sky are randomly generated which can lead to some interesting encounters as one player found. Reddit user Mols1993 shared an image on the Metroid subreddit of an NPC that looks shockingly like Nintendo icon Samus Aran as she appeared in Metroid Fusion. Metroid Fusion recently came to the Switch through the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack, so the game is fresh in the minds of fans everywhere.
Other Metroid fans in the replies to the post mentioned how well a crossover between No Man's Sky and Metroid would work, especially because No Man's Sky was ported to Switch last year. No Man's Sky previously did a crossover with Mass Effect that gave players the chance to explore the Normandy SR-1, a ship from the first Mass Effect game, through a limited-time event. This shows that Hello Games is willing to crossover with other sci-fi gaming franchises to create unique experiences for fans.
No Man's Sky seems to be one of the best platforms for sci-fi gaming crossovers. Not only does it have a big enough scope to be able to encompass other game worlds, but fans have already shown that it is possible to make other genres work in the game such as the fan who recreated Super Mario Bros. in No Man's Sky. With Metroid already being an iconic action sci-fi gaming franchise and No Man's Sky now playable on Switch, a crossover event between the two would undoubtedly do well with fans of either series.
No Man's Sky is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.