The opening screen. It’s real. (credit: Hello Games)

Anticipation has been building around the space-exploration video game No Man’s Sky for years. The game will finally launch on PlayStation 4 consoles this Tuesday and Windows PCs a few days later. But game-review outlets, including review-aggregation site OpenCritic, have spent the week complaining that review copies will not arrive until the game’s launch date of August 9.

As a result, a few major game-review sites that wanted to cover Sky‘s impending retail launch went a different route this Friday: streaming raw gameplay footage.

Rather than be bound by any embargo, reporters at Polygon and Kotaku purchased retail copies of No Man’s Sky from unnamed retailers who broke the game’s official August 9 street date. The reporters immediately began streaming their opening-sequence sessions. Polygon’s gameplay video did not include voice-over commentary, while Kotaku staffers Jason Schreier and Patricia Hernandez turned their mics on to talk about their first-blush impressions.