At the Electronic Entertainment Exposition (E3) of 2014, the British indie game studio, “Hello Games”, showcased the first reveal trailer of a video game they called No Man’s Sky. It is a sci-fi space exploration game that promised to revolutionize the gaming industry, being one of the biggest games in history, with 18 Quintillion planets (18.446.774.073.709.551.616 approximately), divided between 4.2 Billion regions per galaxy, and 255 procedurally generated and fully animated Galaxies. Unfortunately, No Man’s Sky did not deliver what was promised to the audience: it was visually inferior compared to the E3 trailers shown in 2014 and 2015; a considerable amount of programing bugs and missing mechanics were present after launch; and there was a general downgrade on the quality compared to the trailers and interviews the studio published during the game’s development, that combined with false promises and ambiguous statements made by the studio regarding the content that would be present on launch, made the gaming community see No Man’s Sky in a bad light, which lead to the Overwhelmingly Negative Steam review in 2016. The downgrade was such that the U.K Advertising Standard Authority (ASA) opened an investigation against the studio for misleading or false advertisement shortly after launch in 2016.
In November 2016, the ASA dropped the charges against Hello Games, claiming that the videos published by Hello Games compared to the final product were not different enough to be considered false or misleading advertisement on behalf of the studio. In order to redeem themselves with the gaming community and save their title, a week after the investigation was closed, Hello Games published an update named The Foundation Update ,that brought changes to the game’s visuals and added a base construction mechanic, allowing players to claim randomly generated base modules and build a place they could call home. The studio made a few more additions to No Man’s Sky: the Pathfinder Update, released in March 2017, the update added ground vehicles which made exploring planets easier with their abilities to traverse different types of terrain, new ships, shops, and much more, and once again in 2017, Atlas Rise remodeled the construction system, added a new storyline, brought visual changes, and implemented for the first time improvements to the in-game economy. In 4 years, No Man’s Sky received 15 major free updates and had 4 expeditions (limited time events that awarded prizes for players that finished it) issued, causing No Man’s Sky to be changed into a completely new game. It included new mechanics, a more realistic planetary and space environment, a complete user interface redesign, advanced construction, combat, and trade systems, making the game way better compared to what was originally. No Man’s Sky went from being one of the biggest disappointments for the gaming community in 2016, to evolving into a growing sci-fi universe, which is definitely worth checking out.
Currently the game is running on update 3.6, whose main feature is the ability of players to claim towns around the universe, and help those settlement to grow and develop. The constant addition of free content allowed the British title to attain a very positive review on Steam, as of November 2021; even though there is a remaining sense of distrust regarding the studio, specially after the episodes in the early game launch, No Man’s Sky is a great title to fill the collection of those who enjoy exploration games, that can provide hundred of hours for gameplay content with a multitude of activities and campaigns that can be enjoyed alone or with others. Check out the official website for more information and latest patches.
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