Failures in the video game industry is nothing new. Just in the last couple of years, you can point to numerous failures and think, “Man, that really bombed.” Or you could say, “Wow, the developers really let gamers down with how that title launched!” The missteps and errors that have come out over the years that have sunk games or ruined franchises have been numerous and frustrating, and few of them ever “come back from the brink” to get redemption. No Man’s Sky is one of the few games that has gotten redemption. When it was released in 2016, it was one of the most hyped games in recent times, only to have a “dark secret” at launch.
That “secret” was that, despite all the promises that developer Hello Games made, the title wasn’t up to snuff. It had missing features, the universe was boring to explore, there wasn’t as much to do as initially stated, and so on. The game went from best-seller to tanked in record time. However, to its credit, Hello Games bounced back in a big way and has spent the last eight years trying to fix things. The best part is…that it worked! The team released a slew of free content that overhauled its massive universe in various ways, including adding in things like new stories, multiplayer, enriched worlds, etc. Fast forward to now, and Sean Murray of Hello Games posted that the team’s game had reached “Very Positive” status on Steam:
Enter Martin Griffiths, another Hello Games dev who quoted the tweet and stated that he was very happy with how far the dev team came after its initial failure. He also noted that the team wouldn’t be stopping with the content anytime soon:
“Our tiny team at Hello Games have grafted and then grafted some more.. and although “very positive” might be just a few words, it means an awful lot, especially since we aren’t even close to being finished yet. Thank you to all players who believed in us and those of you who continue to journey with us.”
It’s a very nice message, and it’s nice to hear that Hello Games has such faith in itself and No Man’s Sky in its current form that it’ll continue to provide content for it. That also should say something about the amount of players still enjoying the game in its new form because you don’t spend money on content unless you know people will get it.
Either way, this is a redemption story that continues to get a happy ending.
