This might be unpopular, but it feels like the “redemption” story around No Man’s Sky has become more of a cultural comfort narrative than an honest look at what happened.
Let’s be real — most of those updates were just delivering delayed promises, not generosity. The game we were originally sold was missing a lot of advertised features, and Hello Games never actually apologized for lying. On top of that, every update brings more bugs and half-fixed systems, and the community acts like free beta testers for Light No Fire, while still framing it all as “passion” and “commitment.”
It’s like Hello Games built a shoddy, unfinished building, declared it open anyway, and then decided to use it as a testing ground for their next building — and somehow it wins “Best Ongoing Building” every year.
So why do people keep buying into this narrative? Because it’s a comfortable story? Or is it somekind of parasocial relationship going on there?
NMS made 78 million in 2016, this can’t be compared to a failed AAA game or indies where devs walk away from financial failure, another emotional argument?
According to the number of upvotes, it seems that their angst is a reflection of the game industry in general. Hello Games had indeed performed to expectations by not walking away, but does that warrant mythologising the redemption arc? Even when the state of the game is buggy?
A redemption arc implies fucking up in the first place and working to rectify the previous mistakes.
They lied and the game was missing a lot of features at launch, but now all those features (and more) are in the game, which is still being updated for free a decade later.
I don’t like the game, and I wish the devs acted differently so that a redemption arc wasn’t needed in the first place, but it is what it is. The devs worked their asses off, the game is now playable and feature complete and is still being updated, and from the looks of it Hello Games have learned from their mistakes and are not promising the moon for their next game.
I mean, if the game is actually good with its common space tropes as their marketing materials, instead of having the need to be culturally reframed into a “chill sandbox”. 10 years of disjointed game mechanics and bugs still implies bad game design.
Instead of completely changing the game into something else, they opted to add features that complement the original gameplay loop, and lots of people love what the game has to offer.
There’s nothing wrong with not liking NMS, and as I said, I don’t like it either, but I wouldn’t say that the game doesn’t fit the promises made just because you don’t like it. From what I remember, they promised a sandbox game with a big universe and tons of planets to explore along with your friends. NMS currently has that, plus base building, ship customization, and more. All these systems are subservient to the main gameplay loop of going to planet -> gathering resources -> building more stuff, but it’s like that for every sandbox game. I don’t like Minecraft and Factorio either, but like, it’s my opinion. NMS never promised a 10 hrs story driven experience and cinematic cutscenes.
Doesn’t fit the promise made was not the argument; shoddily made, then being reframed into something else was the argument, nor was I expecting a “cinematic experience”. And no, I like Minecraft, MC is crystal clear about what it is trying to be: a building game first with an open world and survival element.
I cannot say the same with NMS and its space tropes and exploration loop.
Sounds to me like you had different expectations and are saying that it’s somehow the game’s fault.
Sounds to me you have no argument.
Your argument is that the game doesn’t fit its “space tropes”, but somehow that’s not you having different expectations than what it was actually promised and delivered?
I expect functional dogfights, not simulator like flight model, but something arcady in a space game with functional AI. How is that an unrealistic expectation?
Let’s not even talk about a simulated universe of faction battles, which Sean even mentioned as being in the game.
I don’t know exactly what you mean with “functional dogfights […] with functional AI”, but from the looks of it, it’s there already:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djIOoTjayKs
There are also different factions in the game that the player can interact with and gain/lose reputation. According to the wiki, entertaining relationships with the in-game factions net the following benefits:
Maybe it’s not as in-depth as you (and I) wish it was, but it’s there already.