British indie game maker Hello Games has just announced a release date for its upcoming epic, No Man's Sky.

The title is much-anticipated because of its sheer scale; you are free to explore the game's virtual open universe of about 18 quintillion planets. Amazingly, a small team of only about 10 or so developers is behind No Man's Sky. Hence all the excitement. Well, we knew it was due to release in June, but now we've been given an official date: 21 June (Engadget says 24 June for the UK).

On those days, it'll arrive for PlayStation 4 and PC. There's even a physical Blu-ray edition for PS4. Pre-orders are live now through PlayStation, Amazon, BestBuy, GameStop and Steam. Although it costs $59.99 (£50 on PS4 and £40 on PC), that figure pales in comparison to the whopping $150 Explorer's Edition (a limited version of the game sold exclusively by iam8bit).

Depicted as another PlayStation first title, No Man's Sky, the "universe size sandbox", is one of those mind-bogglingly impressive games that leaves us wanting more each time we see it. And at E3 2015, we saw gameplay involving space combat, research, and discovery.

It's a game so big that not even the developers know how every planet in every solar system in this giant space exploring epic will look, nor what exactly will be on their surfaces. It's like the big band theory to video games.

Watch a recent trailer below for a closer look.