No Man’s Sky achieves very positive Steam status after 8 years

It’s been eight long years since the open-world space exploration sim launched to a critical panning, but No Many’s Sky has finally ✅achieved a “Very Positive” rating on Steam. On launch, the Hello Games title was slammed for being buggy and boring.

The Guildford, England-based game maker had promised procedurally generated brilliance but fell somewhat short, at least iꦉn the eyes of early players. However, the title has received more than 35 named updates and five content patches in the e🔴ight years since its launch, and the hard work has clearly paid off.

An ill-fated launch

Following lengthy delays, No Man’s Sky finally launched in 2016. There waꦯs a lot of early controversy concerning a leaked early copy of the game and the fact that the gaming press did not receive official review copies. At the time, Hello Games said this was because there was a critical day one patch that was essential to the game. However, some game stores had started selling the title before its official release, so reviewers went ahead and bougꦆht their own copies.

The subsequent reviews were of a buggy, somewhat broken game. The official launch and aforementioned day-one patch didn’t seem to do a great job of fixing the pr𒐪oblems.

The game held a lot of promise during announcements. Players were excited at the possibility of exploring �𝐆�some of the 18.4 quintillion unique planets generated. The problem with these procedurally generated planets is that they can’t possibly be checked by humans, and they were found wanting.

Furthermore, 𝓀while every planet might have been topographically unique, there was only a handful of planet types. After visiting a few ice planets, they all look and act the same. Players criticized the game for being boring. On launch, players also lamented the lack of decent storyline quests. They did exist, but they were very loose and did little to guide new players.

Finally, the game lacked substantial featur🥃es that were promised during the early hype, with multiplayer and base bu♊ilding being the most glaring omissions.

Improvement and growth

While No Man’s Sky ꩵcan be held up as a prime example of how not to live up to game hype, Hello Games activity since that dreaded day shou🧸ld also be hailed as a huge success. Early updates improved the gameplay a lot, and subsequent releases have improved matters even further.

• Foundation brought base-building to the game. In the early days, it was still very limited. Players could only expand on existing bases, but it still added much-needed character.
• Pathfinder brought vehicles and base sharing. The former was a welcome relief as it cut down the tedium of traversing planets, some of which are monstrously big.
• Atlas Rises did a great job of improving the storyline. The original storyline was lackluster, at best.
• The Next update was another significant upgrade, this time bringing full multiplayer features and removing some of the base building restrictions.

The updates released after launch added a ton of features and also greatly improved existing systems, fixing the bugs that were prevalent during the early days and completely turning the game around. No Man’s Sky was initially considered a te🀅chnological and programming♛ masterpiece but a gameplay failure.

Five years after the launch of the game, Hello Games saw its Steam review move from “overwhelmingly negative” to “mostly positive.” Another three years later, it made the even more difficult transition to “very positive,” with “overwhelmingly positive” as the next target.

At the same time, Hello Games, once criticized for poor communication, has been nominated for the 2024 Best Community Support award at The Game Awards 2024

What next for Hello Games?

This year alone has seen the launch of Omega, Orbital, Worlds Part I, and Aquarius updates, while players can play or replay starting this year. As busy as the team seems to be, it is also working on an upcoming fantasy title, Light No Fire. It is another procedurally generated game,🅠 but this time only involves a single planet, and the team has likely learned from a lot of its early mistakes.