Let me tell you about my favorite game: No Man's Sky

No Man's Sky

This game is developed by Hello Games, a small indie video game development company based in the UK, owned by Sean Murray along with other collaborators. The company is responsible for some interesting games like Joe Danger.

Without a doubt, their flagship game is No Man's Sky, which was released in 2016 amidst a lot of controversy because it launched without many of the promised features, had terrible performance, especially noticeable on PS4, many bugs, some main missions couldn't be completed, and it was missing the multiplayer mode that had been promised initially. The controversy was so great that many people requested refunds for the game, and the company lost a lot of money from its launch.

It's believed that the rushed release was due to an agreement with Sony. The game had generated a lot of hype during its 2013 presentation. And it was obvious why: the first space game with over 18 trillion planets to explore, people imagined a practically infinite game. It’s said that the premise of the trillions of planets was fulfilled, but upon release, the planets themselves felt empty. It was a very lonely adventure for the players.

The real story begins here. Many studios that have gone through a similar situation went bankrupt without a chance to recover, but Sean Murray bet on a strategy that almost no one dares to in this industry: He risked everything to release a major update a few months after the game's launch, fixing almost all of the terrible bugs and adding a bit more content. This became a routine, with at least four major updates being released every year, adding more and more content—pets, freighters, VR1 and VR2, fully customizable game modes, cross-platform play for Mac, Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, Steam, and more. Over the years, people started to follow the game again, and by around 2020, the game began to experience a new boom because by then, it had everything that was promised and more. The best part: all of it was completely free for those who bought the game.

And so began its redemption. As of the date of this post, the game has released one of its largest updates: Worlds Part 1. The game makes an incredible graphical leap, optimizing many resources, and also adds more content, like the ability to fish.

Today, Hello Games is widely praised as the company with the greatest redemption story in the video game industry. Now, with the announcement of Light no Fire in 2023, people are once again hyped, as it promises a real-scale planet, fully explorable in an open-world setting. The concept of open world has reached unimaginable levels with Hello Games, receiving praise and favorable comparisons to AAA games like Starfield (although they are completely different games, and I'll talk more about that in another post).

Discovering No Man's Sky

It was the year 2020, and I decided to buy the game after seeing some news about its redemption. I bought it because I liked what I saw in a few gameplay videos, but it sat untouched in my Steam library until 2022. In a moment of boredom with games in general and wanting to try a new experience, I decided to give it a chance, and well... the rest is history. For over a month, I dedicated roughly 5 hours each weekday and more than 12 hours on weekends. In that first month, I easily surpassed 100 hours. This game hooked me so much that I don’t even know how to describe it in words. It changed my life. Its cryptic and captivating story, the endless things to do, the relaxed difficulty, and all the mechanics that no other game even comes close to offering—and all of this from a studio with no more than 30 people? Incredible, no doubt.

I'll leave you with some images of the game, photos I’ve taken myself. This game has brought me so much happiness, and I felt I had to share this feeling with all of you. Additionally, I have a YouTube channel where I’m uploading a lot of content about the game, along with other things.

I invite you all to enjoy this game—you won’t regret it.

Best regards, and happy gaming!