I'm Going to Give 'No Man's Sky' Another Try

No one was happy with No Man’s Sky when it came out. In one of the most famously bad launches in history, developer Hello Games went full Peter Molyneux—it over-promised and under-delivered. For months, developer Sean Murray did a press tour where he touted No Man’s Sky as a vast, procedurally generated, multiplayer adventure. The game he promised was not the game we got.

It’s been two years, and Hello Games has been working on the game the whole time. Last year’s Atlas update added more story, mystery, and a suite of features the modding community had already added. On July 28, the next big patch— No Man’s Sky Next will hit, and add a full multiplayer experience, visual upgrades, better base building, and the ability to build and control a fleet of freighters.

It’s time for me to jump back in. When it released, I didn’t hate No Man’s Sky. I’d been playing video games long enough to know that Murray was probably overselling the game, but I wanted to try it out anyway. Ever since release, I’ve popped in from time to time to see how the game is going. I’ve put 32 hours into the game across these two years, and everytime I check in, it’s a little better than it was before.

With the release of a big patch that finally gives players the multiplayer experience they wanted two years ago, it’s time for me to sit down with the game and really dig in. I’ll gather my friends together (the ones who were curious but disappointed at launch), and chart the unexplored reaches of No Man’s Sky in search of adventures.