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?
I think the company is shit for delivering a shit product. It is less shit for finally delivering some of what was promised but it’s still a shit company
Of all the fucking things to be upset about across the entire world and this is your fight your gonna spend your limited resources on earth on?
Starting shit online about a stupid topic to feel like you actually mean something
You got stupid shit going on dude and not the cool kind
Your asking constantly for a logic to emotion and to just have someone explain that to you here. There. Is. None. Read a damn psychology book about the parallels between nurturing and being a baby and that making us susceptible to emotional attachment to free things given freely over a period of time if you want.
Motherfucker the updates ARE the fucking apology ffs 🤦
Clearly your social engagement consists of this so I’m thinking you just don’t get emotions outside your own at all tbh and can’t be trusted to understand this.
Sheesh, I think you’re taking this a little too personally
A person put in the time, to create an entire post, about how this guy is romanticized and doesn’t deserve it, for attention on the internet and I’M the one who is taking it personally huh?
I’ve seen shit like this posted and reposted for like 8 years now. Did my thing here inconvenience you for what, like 20 seconds? Sorry for giving a frankly good goddamn answer to his direct question addressed to me personally on this here public forum space thing.
Edit: But then again, maybe your right, I don’t like this kind of drama seeking and I’m holding him accountable for the trend at large so perhaps I overdid it a little bit 😓
lol, look at OP’s only other post. Looks like another account for my block list.
Lol, thanks, that’s a badge of honour in true Reddit style.
I just wrote it off as a “oh, another space game” and tossed it on the pile. I don’t care about its story.
I agree, and a big part of that is that everything they’ve added over the years just feels bolted-on.
I tried to give it a shot a little while back and tried to do one of the things that was initially promised you could do, be a trader. Pretty standard space game fare. Only to find out it’s a pretty pointless and broken experience because the way you do interstellar trade in that game is by putting goods in your pockets and walking through portals that exist in every single space station. You never even get in your ship lol.
The game still just feels like a tech demonstration of a bunch of disparate systems that fail to integrate with eachother in any meaningful way. They’ve made the puddle much wider over the years but their outright refusal to make it any deeper is absolutely nuts.
Oh look an idiot!
Praise where praise is due: They did pump out a ton of free updates. Does this compensate for the terrible state the game was released in? That’s something everyone needs to judge for themselves imo.
Does the game have what they once promised now? Is it “good” yet? I think that’s a more difficult question. If I was to criticise Hello Games for anything, than that even now they have not met some of the expectations they set. At least not for me personally.
And I’m not talking about bs speculation or hype, I am talking about things they have said would be in the game, some of which are still not here, and many of them feel like an alpha version of what you would expect. I can’t help but feel disappointed even today.
Given the number of upvotes by posts, it seems that the reaction to Hello Game is a reflection to the industry rather than the actual quality of the game and the intention of Hello Games.
The last time I played it was like 2018-19, but even then it felt very much “mile wide, inch deep.”
I think the true test of that arc will be when. Light no fire releases.
Agree.
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.
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.
Because most other game developers would have crapped out the initial project and moved on.
Indeed. And even delayed fulfillment of the original promises is impressive given how vast the scope of the original pitch was. I’m just happy to have it, even if it took a couple years longer than expected to get.
Take a look at Star Citizen if you want to know the alternative, OP
Bringing Star Citizen up is a race to the bottom.
I think they are saying “look at star citizen as the alternative” meaning never finished, but by comparison No Man’s Sky is complete now?
Maybe i’m reading it wrong though.
Star citizen is about to cross into a billion dollars in development “costs”. It might genuinely be one of the biggest scams in history.
Anthem in some ways is a better example because Start Citizen is never going to release, they can cruise on their promises until the company goes bankrupt. Anthem however was released in an unfinished state hardly reaching the hype it generated and then EA just cut their losses and left it like that.
Remember that HG made £40 million in 2022 from good people like you, of course, they are going to keep at it.
Remember that at that point the game was allready 8 years old had had several large updates. Not counting few spikes from the updates first four years the game had under 2000 player/month in steam. Financially looking the pragmatic choice would have been to stop the development, but they did not.
There has been several games from big publishers that were abandoned shortly after release, even if it still was possible to fix the game. Battleborn, Anthem, Concord. And even more games that are still in theory playable, but are just full if bugs or not fun to play.
But so far i can think only three games that had bad start, but devs kept working on it and eventually managed to make fun games. No mans sky, Fallout 76 and Cyperpunk 2077
Yes, I have already said this is commendable…in the gaming industry, but not in other industries in terms of project delivery, hence the building analogy in my post.
Why would you force other industry term on the gaming industry? Thats just silly. It like saying apple is a bad fruit because it makes for a lousy boat.
Gaming is pretty unique platform in a way where the product is measured by unquantifiable metric called fun, but you want to compare it in standards of other products.
In the end they kept working on a bad product where others would have stopped and ended making it good.
Ain’t that the absurdity? It is a silly analogy, and they are asymmetrical; if the same action applies, would it have a different reaction in the other place? Would Hello Games have the reputation as they have now?
“Why would you force other industry terms on the gaming industry?” Judging from the reply here…well, you tell me…
If i must abide by your original metafora i would say:
They promised grandiose skycraper and delivered shotty apartment complex and the tenant who had bought the apartments were understandably angry. Very few of the tenants stayed anyway, but by all means the building was a failure to the point it would be completelly understandable to have the whole building just bulldozed.
But where most companies would just disbanded and or disapeared with the money, they kept working on the building. Added new floors, made the yard nicer, lowered the prices of the apartments and the whole time tried their best to keep the remaining few people living there happy. And after few years (decates really if you think how much faster gaming industry develops than housing) the place started to be closer what the original brochure said.
Eventually new people start to get intrested about the apartments and the people who originally bought the apartments started to move back in without paying any additional fees. And while the windows were little smaller and the shower tiling were little different than originally promised, people seem to like living there. In a way the constant repairs and the new additions to the place, make it even better to some people.
The point that makes that building special is that nine times out of ten, in these situations the tenants are left with unhabitable home or even closed down building. And even more often the tenants need to pay additional fees to acces the fixed parts of the building.
Is this purely genorosity from the builder? Of course not. They also have bills to pay and in the end its their livelyhood and they surely have investers waiting a return for their money. But is it monumental showing of backbone from the builder to not walk away from the project, but keep working on it. Absolutelly.
Ah, yes, I knew about the divergence of this analogy. Let me add the drama.
Yet, it’s not even following the original blueprint, where the property owner simply speculates what the next move of the builder will be. Some think this property is hot looking from the outside, some think there is a redemption arc going on, some think there are too many leaks in the wall, some thinks the water pressure and the heater are not working well enough, some think it’s just ugly from the inside, some think there is the builders is not communicating at all, some homes vanished, some moved out and gone.
That’s a nice sitcom.
FFXIV probably deserves a spot on the list, the initial launch was so bad they just remade the game.
Your comment makes no sense.
Yes, they made money from sales of the game. This does not explain why they continue to publish free updates for the last 10 years.
“like you”
He didn’t say he bought it. He was explaining the very obvious answer to your very obvious question. Why get all weirdly accusatory and righteous?
Why so sensitive? What’s the accusation? All I pointed out was that HG made a lot of money from people over the years; it makes a lot of sense that they did not abandon the project.
You (possibly falsely) accused a commenter of supporting HG while saying it’s a stupid thing you do. You were a dick. I pointed it out.
And that’s the whole story my friend.
You can support HG, but that doesn’t mean that others have no right to think that it is not a smart thing to do. Spare me your ad hominem tactic, please.
I will try one more time to get the point across.
I’m not calling you a jerk because I’m insulting you ad hominem and think HG is good. I’m calling you a jerk because you were a jerk. And I agree with you that HG is not good.
Ad hominem would be if I disagreed with you.
I mean, calling me a dick is already an Ad hominem. You are a jerk because you are a jerk is just circular reasoning, so there is just nothing but insults and ad hominem. xD
I played it last year, I wasn’t Impressed. It was meh at best.
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I know your question is likely rhetorical, but for the same reason. They improved on it enough to drown out the bad press and turn people’s opinions.
I think that both games are good games, and they’re both fun. They had to meet unrealistic release expectations both internally and externally so had a terrible experience at launch. There’s clearly more money in fixing the product and improving public opinion though, so they did.
I think people often forget that many games are the product of a really significant amount of people working for a significant amount of time, and that both the company paying them and the people working would like money to go in instead of out.
Selling entertainment/art is sometimes self contradicting.
I also feel weird about it. “omg they updated a lot blah blah.” I believed them and loaded the game and it’s boring AF. I just assumed it’s a genre I didn’t like but it feels like it’s unworthy of praise for me too. You’re not alone dawg.
I dont believe you know where the line is to forgive someone for having wronged you
Which is understandable imo
Thanks :)
Delivering on delayed promises is more than most game companies will ever do. Their actions in fixing and adding to the game is the apology. Every update does bring bugs but you say this like the game is in an unplayable state. It’s perfectly fine 99% of the time and the 1% it’s not is usually fixed within the week. As a day 1 owner who could barely run the game on launch it’s come so fucking far. It literally took half an hour for the game to boot during those early days. There wasn’t much to do on top of that. The systems were confusing and the game would crash almost every time you booted it. Everything has been fixed and refined for FREE!
Compare this to a company like Paradox and Colossal Order who killed Cities Skylines 2. That game released in the sorriest state I think I’ve ever seen in my life(including SimCity 5). The graphics are ass. The simulation didn’t actually work. The traffic was worse than the original. Every system in that game was fucked beyond belief. On top of that they charged people on day 1 for additional content. Content that took almost 2 years to deliver. Now their original dev team got fired and a complete unknown with two games is supposed to take over the current king of a genre for a redemption arc. Cities Skylines 2 was murdered and set the modern city builder genre back almost 2 decades by continuing the reign of SimCity 4 as the best Modern City Buider ever.
When you compare that to what Hello Games has done with No Man’s Sky you will see why we celebrate them. This isn’t some exaggeration or accident. It’s years of steady, consistent work that has turned a broken and potentially career ending product into the recommended space sim of this generation.
Ah shit, yes, sorry about Cities Skyline 2, I liked Paradox when they were still small.
At the same time, Hello Games surely looks like a saint compared to AAA games. But coming from indie and open source games with long open betas and demos before they commit to commercial, the redemption arc looks…dramatic.
Those games don’t cost and are purely driven by passion as well.
