No Man's Sky released last year after years of hype. Gamers everywhere were eager to explore a massive universe of procedurally generated planets each different from the last. What gamers got instead was a game that was about as deep as a puddle after a sun shower. To be blunt, No Man's Sky was by far one of the biggest disappointments last year.
The game may have been big but many critics and gamers found the game to be repetitive, tedious, and unintuitive. The limits of procedural generation are what led to this tedium as most of the planets feel the same along with the creatures.
Couple this with graphics that don't look anywhere near as polished when presented prior to release and No Man's Sky was a game that underwhelmed audiences and critics.
One year later and No Man's Sky has lost a lot of its player-base
The drop in popularity of No Man's Sky was to be expected, however. The game at its launch had over 200,000 players logged in playing the game. One year later that number has dropped into the 1,000's. It's a shame that No Man's Skys fate was one so depressing yet Hello Games still wants to salvage the game they envisioned all those years ago.
No Man's Sky has released several updates this past year which have helped to satisfy fans of the game. Hello Games is promising a brand new 1.3 update titled Rising Atlas with all new changes to trade and farming, freighters, exploration, and more.
Additionally, this new Update will feature a brand new story called the "Waking Titan" which supposedly tells the origin of the "No Man's Sky."
While it is good to know that Hello Games isn't going to abandon ship just yet I don't think they realize that their ship is already sinking. This new update may bring back some older players but it's only delaying the inevitable.
No Man's Sky launch was probably the most important part of it being a success. While the game did sell relatively well and draw in a large crowd of gamers, the expectations set for the game were too high. The developers were unable to meet these expectations, leading to many gamers moving on to bigger and better games.
They missed their shot at launch and couldn't keep the momentum going
Hello Games can try all they like to win those old players back. They may bring back a handful of them and satisfy current players but there isn't any way to get their player-base back up to 200,000.
If I were in charge of Hello Games I would make this update the last and try to start fresh with something new. Additionally, this game wouldn't be dishonestly marketed the way No Man's Sky was and live up the hype. Either way, Hello Games is going to have a lot of making up to do with the gaming community if it wants us to forgive them for No Man's Sky.
