GameInformer- "Ever since No Man's Sky was unveiled during the Spike VGX awards in 2013, the internet's anticipation for this ambitious game has grown astronomically. The small studio Hello Games in Guildford, England is creating an entire galaxy, and the gaming community is starting to expect infinite possibilities. While visiting the studio for our January cover story on No Man's Sky, we spoke with studio founder Sean Murray about what it's like to be in the eye of the hurricane of hype and how the team deals with that kind of external pressure."
Introducing..No Man's Sky: Adrift.A lot has changed in the years since No Man’s Sky released.
Despite No Man Sky's rocky launch, Hello Games managed to turn it into one of the best space exploration RPGs out there.
I hate the whole concept of "comeback story" because at the end of the day it doesn't remove the core issue we had in the first place, that we were lied to, it was disappointing and it launched with bare content to what was promised for years.
Any bad game can have a comeback story if it's supported enough after launch but for me if you launch in a terrible state then you had your chance. I can applaud you for what you've done after but at the end of the day there's not much of a choice since most gamers would blank your next product if you ditched your last game so fast, it's not about repairing the game but spending your time repairing gamers trust before you launch your next product otherwise it would be dead on arrival.
With these stories and the games being updated, the only way is up most of the time so of course it's going to improve the game and feel better over all, getting better and better as time passes. No Mans Sky, Sea of Thieves, Fallout 76 etc but then you have games like Anthem, Suicide Squad, Redfall and The Avengers where the devs just clearly moved on, now if they have another product people won't be as exited for it, I mean hell Guardians of the Galaxy was a great game but because of the Avengers it didn't help its sales since people were obviously still sour at that point.
I still think despite the improvements to games like No Mans Sky and Cyberpunk along with being better now overall the games are still not up there to what was promised and hyped as for years.
If we keep celebrating these “comeback stories” then unfortunately it only strongly supports the concept that these studios / publishers can continue to push half arsed broken products out for the sake of quick sales instead of waiting until they are fully finished. We need to condemn this awful behaviour or sadly we lose all voice and power as consumers.
I really enjoyed it at launch and had every trophy by August 2016.
The experience I had is no longer in the game: It was just me and my ship. It was a survival game and the feeling of loneliness in the universe was pervasive. There was no way to ruin too far from your ship and, in an emergency, you grenaded a hole in the ground to survive.
I miss that aspect, but since then, I love what they've done.
Orbital update drops today, also bringing with it engine improvements and UI refresh.
Its 10 guys with a budget of <$1mm. Don't put such huge expectations on them.
This is the definition of a small indie title. It will probably be priced at $19.99 and they will be happy to sell a few hundred thousand units.
They aren't "creating" a universe. Its a randomly generated exploration game. A computer is generating the universe - and a lot of it will no make sense whatsoever or will be BLEH. Gonna be like SPORE or Starbound. Which is fine, but its not gonna sell a ton of copies.
They're trying their hardest to pack the game with content and other worthwhile things to see/do. I'm sure there's gonna be a bunch of stuff we can't do and that will turn off a lot of gamers, but hopefully there will be a steady supply of updates over the game's lifetime. I hardly doubt they'll just abandon this "universe" they've made.
An easy cope is to keep reminding yourself that there's still no f***ing clue what the game will be like outside of space shooting.
My hype level for this game is over 9000!
But I won't judge them in anyway if it aint game of the year or if it ain't what we really expect.
Mainly because its a new studio with a small team and a low budget, like "DougLord" (first comment above) has said.
How I cope with the hype for NMS?
Easy I play Elite Dangerous! A game that is an entire universe filled with things to do, explore, pew pew, mine, craft, trade, build, destroy, etc.. And it was all clearly understood what you would be doing before launching.
Unlike NMS in which we get vague descriptions of actual game play.
"how's the game play Mr. developer"?
"ummm you do stuff"
"can you be more specific "
"Oh look funny colored Dinosaurs on Desert type planets"
Also all I hear is Procedural Generated this and Procedural Generated that! Big deal seeing how we have had procedural generation since STARFLIGHT on the Sega Genesis! So Pro-Gen is not a selling point for me. Stop beating around the bush and give me specific gameplay features.
NMS = more hype than substance!