The Engoodening of No Man's Sky

What people said

csense · 2025-04 · Strong recommendation

Internet Historian made an amazing documentary on how the game's changed over the years [1]. They're still making massive changes to the game! If it's been years since you played it, you should give it a try. There have been a lot of bug/crash fixes, new mechanics, even redoing some core game systems (I think they recently made some big changes to planet generation). [1] [VIDEO]

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jmyeet · 2023-02 · Strong recommendation

I'm super happy for these guys. They really have struggled with donations for many years. It's nice to see them get the bag. For those commenting on the sales drop off, it is a problem for AAA titles that a half-finished product gets sold to the public and then abandoned because it's easier to just move onto the next thing. But I want to counter that with the story of No Man's Sky. I highly recommend the Internet Historian video on it [1]. The short version is for various reasons the game over-promised and under-delieved on launch but Sean and HelloGames have now spent years continuing to develop the game with free and significant updates. I can only imagine this still drives sales growth or it wouldn't be sustainable. But it's really repaired HG's and NMS's reputation. NMS has a real cult following now. And then of course there's Minecraft whose long tail of sales is truly mind-blowing. [1]: [VIDEO]

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cletus · 2022-02 · Strong recommendation

Watching Star Citizen has been a hobby for me like watching a train wreck is painfully slow motion. It came about at the same time as the revival of a beloved franchise Elite in the form of Elite Dangerous. ED didn't have the budget SC does but it stuck to quite narrow development goals and shipped years ago. It's progressively added updates, patches and expansions since. No Man's Sky is vaguely in the same vein and had a terrible launch (I highly recommend this video [1]) but, to their credit, Hello Games has plugged away at NMS adding more content and updates to the point where it's an enjoyable experience now and has a loyal fan base. But SC? By God. It's like a progenitor for NFT scams. Constantly raising even more money by selling limited run ships (for a game that still basically doesn't exist). I'd occasionally see a presentation on some new system under development (eg the prison system) and I always thought "why on Earth are they talking about this before they even have a core game?" It's an object lesson that too much money can be a bad thing. It's so easy for an embarrassment of riches to lead to hopeless feature creep and not really delivering anything. I'm honestly surprised so many still drink the Kool-Aid on SC. I really wonder where all the money has gone (and how much is actually gone). [1]: [VIDEO]

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