MMGN writes: I listed No Man’s Sky as one of the games I was most intrigued by heading into E3. We’d heard so much about this game and what it hopes to be, but we’ve been teased and lied to with trailers in the past. Scope is important because you can make a game look bigger in a condensed trailer with selective footage. Throw in some buzz terms and suddenly the hype meter goes into overdrive, and you could definitely say that happened to No Man’s Sky after last year’s E3 reveal.
I planned to see it behind closed doors at E3 2015 in the hope of seeing a little more of what developer Hello Games was promising, and I certainly got that. Fortunately, I walked away convinced that No Man’s Sky is exactly what Sony says it is: a big (biiiiiiiig) procedurally-generated universe waiting to be explored.
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.
HG could have stopped after making 3-4 updates and the debt would have been paid to those why are crying about paying full price. However, they have continously provided free updates for the last 6-7 years. No other developer in hostory has ever done this and probably never will.
There are many AAA games that disappointed but the devs normally move on or close the studio rather than fix the game.
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 feel the same way about Cyberpunk 2077. I'm glad you mentioned that. I'm not a fan of comeback stories as well. But No man sky developer was a small indie team compared to CDPR. It's worse when it's coming from a AAA developer
"Any bad game can have a comeback story if it's supported enough after launch"
You make it sound so simple and easy. It's not. After release Hello Games poured countless hours into getting their game closer to what they originally wanted, without charging a penny to anyone. That's not normal.
The reason NMS and HG are held in such high esteem and calling them liars is a weak stance is the amount of work they've put into it, for free. They're not chasing a quick buck, they've dedicated their lives over the last few years to giving their fans the game everyone wanted.
They are liars though...
We are not revising history here, I'm sorry but we're not
They built this game up for years and they launched it knowing full well it wasn't up to scratch to what they originally showed off or hyped it up to be.
"They're not chasing a quick buck, they've dedicated their lives over the last few years to giving their fans the game everyone wanted"
And like I said above most of that comes from the fact that if they had just moved on straight away nobody would have supported their next game. They've washed most of that sour taste away after supporting No Mans Sky so now they are doing a new game which more people feel like they can support and get excited for.
Anyway how can you say "You make it sound so simple and easy. It's not" and then make the point that "Hello Games poured countless hours into getting their game closer to what they originally wanted, without charging a penny to anyone"
This means that if a small team like this can turn a game around then big AAA games like Suicide Squad, Redfall, Anthem and the like should have been able to do it no problem, oh but that's right they didn't want to put the time or effort into it. They can do it but some people just decide not to.
"You make it sound so simple and easy. It's not. After release Hello Games poured countless hours into getting their game closer to what they originally wanted, without charging a penny to anyone. That's not normal."
People paid for the game at launch and got lied to. Now the game is what it SHOULD have been from the start (what people paid for) and we should be happy they aren't charging EXTRA? Its free because people ALREADY paid for the game at launch.
People PAID for what the game is in its current state (what it should have been at launch), not what it was when it released. Charging people AGAIN would result in even more backlash.
"You make it sound so simple and easy. It's not. After release Hello Games poured countless hours into getting their game closer to what they originally wanted, without charging a penny to anyone. That's not normal."
They already charged for the full price game. All of that work is owed because it was already paid for.
Fox ... sure HG made a huge mistake, but they have also done more then any development team that I have seen to fix the problem and go way beyond in supporting the game. And every update has been free, so I don't really get why you are holding on to this grudge.
Whatever happened at launch is in the past. By your logic they could have supported it for a year got it to the project they promised then stopped but they didn't. They're still supporting it to this they, they've released more content post than pretty much any game I can think off. More than most MMOs. They didn't have to go this far but they have and don't have any plans of stopping. All for free too.
Yeah they had a shit launch and they've apologised, learned and more than made up for it. I was pissed off at them at launch, but not petty enough to keep slandering them 7 years later.
You have much bigger studios releasing half assed games and fixing it later or even worse not even bothering.
The DLC costs money. But yeah, people are hanging on to this one longer because of their previous reputation.
And it doesn't change the fact that the game is a boring procedurally generated environment in which your repeat the same actions over and over again with no real purpose. I hate when they say that the game became good.
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.
Yep and the way they actually did it where Bahamut destroyed the original FF14 and the realm was “reborn” seals it as the best way to do something like this, lol.
Orbital update drops today, also bringing with it engine improvements and UI refresh.
The support they've given this game only makes me more interested in their next game.
I'm basically just expecting a 'zen-game', as in when I want an hour to relax, I want to just jump in my space ship, cruise to some gorgeous planets, and explore them.
That's all I want, that's all I'm expecting from this game, and it seems like it will deliver on that, so I'm looking forward to it.
"Scope is important because you can make a game look bigger in a condensed trailer with selective footage. "
No no... if nothing else, the game is big. We really don't have references to help us understand how big. Its probably much larger than every game ever combined (many, many times over) Like trying to explain the size of Earth to an ant.
Either way I'm glad that people are giving such great feedback about this.
Its exclusive to PS4, so you know it's going to be awesome!
I'm relieved to hear it's gotten some really positive previews at E3. I was worried that they would deliever a game that would get old fast because they focused on procedurally generating a huge universe instead of gameplay.
Only thing I'll potentially be disappointed about is if this game doesn't get Morpheous support.