No Man's Sky: No Man's Play

Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: HELLO GAMES
How did a game that held so much promise go from 200,000 players at the release to just 20,000 players just two months later?

One of the most anticipated games since 2013, winning virtually every award and stealing the show at every event it was showcased at pre-release, has officially flopped after only two months.

Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky had one of the greatest concepts of all time, a space exploration game that would take five billion years to visit each planet for one second. The game has 18 quintillion unique planets to explore, with their own special ecosystem. The over saturated cartoon graphics made the experience much more stunning, rather than realistic and having the freedom to travel in literally every direction provided an extreme sense of satisfaction.

So how did this game go from 200,000 players and counting on release at the end of August to well under 20,000 players now? The simple answer is that a lot of the promises made during the pre-release just did not make the final cut and in the gaming world, that translates to straight up lying.

One of the biggest selling points which was missing in the game was that the universe was shared with all of the hundreds of thousands of other players. Gamers dreamed of forming governments and policing planets from the trolls trying to destroy space stations and fleets, or having space races and playing hide and seek on asteroids. Unfortunately, none of that was there. As soon as you turn on the game, essentially you are alone in an infinite universe of dull planets, no story line and a repetitive and almost linear experience.

Another cut from the final release was the depth of the details. Gamers were promised a living universe in relation to the sun. Planets day and night cycle, environment, weather and trading resources all depended on where you were located. This realistic concept was replaced with a simplistic engine that made exploring pointless.

What made gamers even more angry is the fact that No Man’s Sky creator Sean Murray has gone silent on social media, ignoring the requests of thousands of angry customers. The lack of public relations and customer service was the nail in the coffin for this game, with thousands requesting refunds. Hello Games is still releasing patches to help slowly improve the experience, but until they promise to bring the features we all wanted back with a realistic timeline, the community will continue to slowly diminish.