About

No Man's Sky is an action-adventure survival game developed and published by Hello Games and was released worldwide in August 9th 2016 for PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows and Xbox One in July 24th, 2018 and Virtual Reality headsets (PlayStation VR and SteamVR) in August 14th, 2019.

The game is unique for allowing players to explore a procedurally generated open universe, with upwards of 18 quintillion planets populated with a variety of flora, fauna and resources.

Gameplay

The game allows players to engage in four principal activities: exploration, survival, combat, and trading. it bears many similarities to other games in the survival genre. Players can choose between 4 different modes: Normal, Survival, Creative or Permadeath.

The game is played from the first or third-person perspective of a planetary explorer, known in-game as the Traveller, in an uncharted universe. The player starts the game wearing a spacesuit and is equipped with a jetpack, a multitool and a spacecraft. By exploring planets throughout the universe, players collect information which is uploaded to a galactic database called The Atlas in exchange for in-game currency. Currency is used for a variety of upgrades, including gear and abilities. Players can extra resources from planets and hunt various lifeforms, which can raise their intergalactic "wanted level."

Additionally, the game's entire virtual universe is created through procedural generation, deterministic algorithms and random number generators.

History

On December 9th, 2013, the UK indie developer studio Hello Games announced No Man's Sky at the Spike VGX awards ceremony, presenting a trailer highlighting the game's procedurally generated environments (shown below).

In June 2014, a No Man's Sky trailer was presented during Sony's PlayStation press conference at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (shown below, left). Over the next two years, a YouTube upload over the trailer gathered more than 5.13 million views and 6,600 comments. On December 6th, Hello Games and PlayStation released a No Man's Sky gameplay trailer on YouTube, garnering upwards of 2.8 million views and 5,200 comments within two years (shown below, right).

Post-release updates

The game has received multiple major content updates that have introduced numerous features, some was missing from the game.

The First Update, titled "Foundation Update" (shown below, left) introduces three different game modes, Base Building, adding save points, new New Resources & Technology, new important items, cargo freighters, Improved User Interface, TAA & Motion Blur and a plethora of smaller additions and improvements.^[30]

The Second Update, titled "Path Finder" (shown below, right) introduces planetary vehicles (known as Exocraft), new base building features & materials, base sharing w/ Steam Workshop integration for PC Version, improved Visuals, new ship/weapon & specialisation, permadeath mode, HDR, PS4 Pro support, Photo Mode and much more.^[31]

The Third Update, titled "Altus Rises" (shown below, left) introduces a new and overhauled entracl storyline with over 30 hours of new story content, introduction of portals, procedural mission system, trade improvements, system economies, limited online cooperative mode called "Joint Exploration", Graphical Overhaul, Terrain Editor, Improved flight and combat and so much more.^[32]

The Fourth Update, titled "NEXT" (shown below, right) brings Full Multiplayer support, Player Customization, Visual & Procedural Generation Overhaul, Option to switch between first or third-person views, major base-building upgrades, new Freighters feature, Community Engagement and much, much more.^[33] The 'Next' Update also coincide the game's full release on Xbox One.

The Fifth Update, titled "The Abyss" (shown below, left) focused on underwater exploration, overhauling Ocean rendering and gameplay while adding New Storyline, increasing variety and improved visuals quality of underwater biomes, new creatures, a Submarine Exocraft, New Construction models for underwater base building and more. outside of Water, Vehicle Shop has been introduced and Freighter and Frigate receive enhancements.^[35]

The Sixth Update, titled "Visions" (shown below, right) focused on improving the key visuals and gameplay (such as Environmental biomes, New Planet types, New Biomes, Water Variation, Atmospheric types and Rainbows, New fauna, improved Crashed freighters variety and more) while adding New and Bizarre Creatures, Exotic Trophies, introducing Archaeology and Shared Community Missions.^[36]

Latest Major Update: Beyond

The Seventh Update, titled "Beyond" is latest major content update for No Man's Sky. unlike previous updates, Beyond combines three major updates into one: Enhanced Multiplayer under the name "No Man's Sky Online" (Up to 8-32 Players depending on the platform^[38] , New Social Hub, Ambient Multiplayer and more), Virtual Reality support for PlayStation VR and SteamVR (Video Below, Right), and overhauling a signification portion of the entire game under the name "No Man's Sky 2.0", such as Streamlining Missions and Tutorials, New Story Content, Rebalanced/reworked overall graphics and gameplay (revised/updated User/Inventory/Base Building Menu Interface, Expanded Controller support for PC via SteamInput API/OpenVR), New features for the Creatures (Farming, Taming and mount ride), New Base Building additions and improvements (Base Power generator/solar panels), Dynamic NPCs, First-Person Exocraft Interiors, Graphical Optimization improvements (Reduced Initial Load Time, Enhanced Starship, overhauled PC Graphical Settings, Vulkan API) and so much more.^[37]

Beyond is considered the biggest update thus far.

Reception

Critically, the game received a wide range of mixed reviews, with some praising the technical achievements of the procedurally generated universe, while others considered the gameplay lackluster and repetitive.

On Metacritic^[7] and OpenCritic^[29] the game has a "mixed" score of 71/100 and 70/100 after accumulating 68 professional reviews. Some reviewers praised how No Man's Sky captured "what the experience of exploring the universe must be,"^[8] while others like Polygon ^[9], The Verge^[11], Jim Sterling ^[12], Eurogamer^[13], Wired^[14], and Kotaku ^[15] knocked the game for not having much to do, being buggy, a lack of polish caused by the its scope, monotonous gameplay, and more.

However, reception from the players has been generally negative, as players reckoned with disappointment following Sean Murray's failure to deliver many of the features he had proposed for the game, especially the absence of a massively multiplayer online platform similar to games like Journey or Dark Souls, as noted in videos uploaded by YouTubers CrowbCat (left) and TerakJK (right), shown below.

Redditor Cymen90 compiled an exhaustive list of what is missing that was promised in No Man's Sky in a thread called "Where's the No Man's Sky we were sold on? A BIG list of things that are missing with sources, links and quotes. Also, dubious advertisement (x-post from r/nomansskythegame)."^[10] The thread gained 5,304 points in a single day.

Since then, several major content updates has has generally improved its reception. Redditor NSNIA submitted a screenshot of the game's recent Steam reviews to /r/gaming,^[34] noting how they had significantly shifted from earlier reviews thanks to the new update (shown below).

Online Presence

On December 8th, 2013, a wiki for Not Man's Sky was launched on Gamepedia.^[5] On December 10th, a Wikia^[4] page for No Man's Sky was created. On June 12th, 2014, the /r/NoMansSkyTheGame^[1] subreddit was launched for discussions about the game. On June 20th, the official No Man's Sky Facebook^[6] page was created, which accumulated upwards of 135,000 likes within two years. On April 11th, 2016, IGN released footage of the first 21 minutes of No Man's Sky gameplay on YouTube, gaining over 2.9 million views and 16,300 comments within three months.

Controversies

The promotion and marketing for No Man's Sky became a subject of debate, and the video game industry has used No Man's Sky as an example of missteps to avoid in marketing.

Release Delay

On May 27th, 2016, approximately one month prior to the game's planned release on June 21st, Hello Games announced that the game would be delayed until August 9th. Following the announcement, Hello Games' founder Sean Murray tweeted that he had "received loads of death threats" (shown below).^[2]

"Superformula" Lawsuit

In mid-July 2016, the company Genicap claimed that No Man's Sky was using its patented geometric transformation "superformula" in its procedural generated landscapes and terrain. Genicap business developer Jeroen Sparrow claimed that the company did not want to halt the launch of No Man's Sky, but stated "if the formula is used, we will have to sit at the table at any given time."^[3]

Refund Requests

By August 27th, the drastic decline in user-base, along with increasing criticisms surrounding the game, had amounted to a massive wave of refund requests from the players to online vendors, including Amazon, GOG, Humble Bundle, Sony and Steam. As many players began sharing their stories of getting fully reimbursed on Reddit, a misleading rumor that Steam, Sony and other vendors are offering an unconditional refund for No Man's Sky surfaced on Reddit's /r/NoMansSky^[19] and the NeoGAF forum.^[20]

On August 30th, Steam issued a special notice on the store page of No Man's Sky to remind its players that the standard refund policy applies to the title, which allows refund for those who played the game for less than two hours.

/r/NoMansSkyTheGame Shutdown

On October 5th, 2016, /r/NoMansSkyTheGame moderator R0ugeW0lf^[24] shut down the subreddit for No Man's Sky, citing that it had "become a hate filled wastehole of no actual discussion." He cited that he acted alone out of his own cynicism.

Soon, the subreddit was reopened, as R0ugeW0lf handed over control to user Sporkicide. The decision grabbed the attention of gaming journalism outlets Eurogamer,^[23] Polygon,^[28] Gamerant,^[25] and Now Loading.^[26] The controversy was also trending on Facebook^[27] that day.

Search Interest

External References