(logo trills) - [Jake] "No Man's Sky,"
yes, let's talk about it. This game has truly done the impossible and serves as the poster child for games that are initially poorly received, that overcome the odds
and rise from the ashes as a product that does right
by its original customers and just becomes a damn good game that lives on for years to come. "No Man's Sky" is a blueprint for a game eventually becoming great. It is not a perfect road. It is not a clean exit
or a perfect landing or anything like that,
but it is interesting. So let's talk about how they did it. First of course, a quick recap addressing the elephant in the room, and that is "No Man's
Sky's" disappointing launch. The game was teased with an announcement by developers Hello Games in 2013, and instantly people were hooked. People wanted to believe in this new age, procedurally generated,
space exploration game, where you could go
anywhere and do anything and be your own space adventure person with your own cool ship. Endless possibilities. New fans were excited for the
idea of "Skyrim" in space, and old school, PC
gaming, space faring fans, were curious to see how a new age version of that procedurally generated
space exploration thing would go. And with the game being delayed and being pushed quite a while, it left even more time for
people's imaginations to wander. The technology behind it seemed cool and all those big ideas really
just got a hype train, huge, and it left the station. It was all over the video game fan world but it even broke into the mainstream too, with it being featured on
a late night talk show. All just because it
seemed, in theory, so cool. Well, "No Man's Sky" officially
released August, 2016, and me, personally, I was lukewarm on it. I thought it was kind of
repetitive, unfinished, and was kind of unsatisfying. Still, some of the systems worked well and it had a lot of potential. And some of the presentation and creative and graphical
stuff was kind of there. My biggest problem was that the game felt like it had no life and felt ultimately kind of meaningless. This is where the problem lies. From the trailer and everything
people had seen of the game, people put a lot of high
expectations towards it, like we said, and it was
really the game itself, it's marketing, it's hype, I don't know, but writing a bunch of checks that the actual game they
developed could not cash. The whole endless exploration
concept just felt really dull and did not generate any of that wonder. Aliens were basically non-existent. Encountering other players
wasn't really a thing. And the loot and the ship
stuff was super basic and limiting. All in all, it felt like it wasn't worth the full game price at
$60 in the United States. It was kind of cool but it felt unfinished and nowhere near as cool
as it could have been. The art style was there. The music was there. The vibe was there. And some of the foundation was there, but it needed way more, clearly. People justifiably felt ripped off. Reactions were extremely
angry, as the internet goes, you know the drill. "No Man's Sky" was a weird
launch with straight up bad PR that was nestled in a blanket
of huge sales numbers. Best selling release on
the PlayStation Store the month of launch. The Steam version very
quickly seemed to hit a million players. A lot of people bought it, but a lot of people weren't
super happy with it. Here's where things
get interesting though. Hello Games didn't just
like take the money and run, at least, you know,
seemingly to most of us, developers or corporations
don't always stick around to provide customer support or fix things that you purchased. And that's what makes "No Man's Sky" whole story interesting, it's
that they didn't abandon it. While some people will forever consider these developers liars or con artists. Okay, sure. But they slowly through
a long period of time, took all that money and dumped it right into more development,
flushing out the game, and ultimately satisfying way more people. Now games, especially a
traditional release like this, just should not ever release like this. You cannot offer a product and then just figure it out later. But at the very least, Hello
Games did the right thing here. If you spent $60 and
didn't ask for a refund and just held onto the game,
whether you were burned or not, by now if you pop that thing
back in or re-download it, you got a game that is
well worth the price. It's a really long road. It took a long road to get there. And one where the developers
would often go silent for months on end only to pop up with a cool new feature or two. Let's break it down. So first it started with "Foundation." This was the first
content the game received. There was two more game
modes, creative and survival. It made base building a thing. You could have a home planet and claim abandoned bases
and then build off of them. You had the ability to
purchase freighters, which you could summon
anywhere in the galaxy, even though that was kind of early. And it just had new
resources and new technology and farming. Then there was the Pathfinder update, which is where the game started
to get updated visually. You could also share your bases online for other players to discover. You could own multiple ships and store them in your freighter. There was also a new class of ships, new vehicles that could be
used on the surface of planets, new merchants and currency, more life, more base building options,
quality of life stuff, and multi-tool classes and
specialization and weapon modes. Then with one of the
big ones, "Atlas Rises," they added on actual like real narrative that worked way more
like a traditional quest. There was 30 hours or so of content. There was new worlds, more
stuff you could find, a new AI, the in-game economy was expanded,
more visual improvements, terrain manipulation, and an
improvement of space combat. You could actually fly low
and cruise above the terrain. This all really led to
"No Man's Sky Next." This is the real first big boy. This is 1.5. This had actual, real multiplayer where you could play with your friends and actually see them. It had weekly content
and community events, a third person camera, a
whole third person view mode, more customization, way
bigger base building. The freighter mechanics were bigger. Crafting was overhauled. The UI was overhauled. The graphics were beefed up once again, and more marketplaces were added. Now smaller updates, like
"Abyss" and "Visions," added small gameplay stuff, but it wasn't really until "Beyond" where stuff got big again. "Beyond" was like 2.0,
this gave you VR support, multiplayer was expanded, allowing for even more
players to gather together. Ambient multiplayer became a thing. Early game stuff, like onboarding
was way more streamlined and just more interesting. There were more hubs, more
exploration opportunities, more quests. Combat was improved overall, more enemies, just more interesting
stuff to combat with, more settings for PC
graphics, more base building. It was crazy. Then after that, we were
back to smaller updates, like "Synthesis," "Living
Ship," "Exo Mech," "Crossplay," "Desolation,"
that was the spooky alien one. And then we got "Origins 3.0," with more planets, different plant life, more diverse planets, more teleporters, updated graphics and
biomes, weather effects, like volcanoes and firestorms,
giant enemies, wild robots, NPCs that you could
encounter out in the wild. Then there was the "Next
Gen" update, "Companions," and "Expeditions," which
gave expedition mode, where you were able to start
with other players on a planet and you go on missions together
and work as a community to unlock rewards. Then there was "Prisms,"
which was graphical stuff, "Frontiers," more base
building, a "Sentinel" update, and the newest one
"Outlaws," with space capes. I'm serious. Outlaw space stations, smuggling, improved space combat, in
atmosphere starship combat, interstellar piracy, pirate missions, and just even more to do. As you could tell, I'm
kind of out of breath listing all of this stuff. It sounds like I'm just kind
of reading a marketing sheet, but just kind of doing it to show there is a staggering amount
of new stuff in this game and it's really wild. If you're like some of
us here at Gameranx, where you just periodically would pop back in and see what's new, by this point, it is totally overhauled. And the community has taken to it. I mean, just look at Steam reviews. They're mostly very positive now. And the community, the
people who have been hooked on this game, have been
eating well for a while. I think they realize "No
Man's Sky" will never make as big a splash as that
big, official reveal, and then it getting all
the mainstream attention, and just the whole gaming sphere. But they put their heads down
and kept working on the game. And every update maybe
doesn't get released to a ton of fanfare, but the people who play
this game are pleased. And if you've played any type of game that is consistently updated or is online or has anything like that, you understand how important
it is that the developers actually give a damn. Not to mention, people
have also taken to it with the base building and exploration, and just have come up
with really cool stuff, whether it's beautiful
images in this photo mode, discovering weird, strange planets, making incredible structures, just basically almost
living in these game worlds. "No Man's Sky" for us, and for the people who are playing it, they really turn this thing around. "No Man's Sky" now stands with other cool, open-ended space exploration-type games. It's a little different,
it's a little more quirkier, but it is still unique and pretty special. And at the end of the day,
like I said in the beginning, we're glad that the
developers didn't cut and run. And we're just happy that even
if we're still kind of pissed at how they handled
things in the first place, at the very least, dude, now
a good game exists out there in the universe. You know what I mean? So basically "No Man's
Sky" did the impossible, they saved themselves
from everybody hating them and just a complete PR disaster
by sticking to their guns, putting their money where their mouth is, and end up making a good game. But that's just us. That's how we feel. We're very curious to
hear what you guys think. If you've jumped back into
"No Man's Sky" over the years are you significantly more into it now? Are you playing with a friend? Have you built something cool
or discovered something cool? Let's talk about this stuff. There's a lot to talk
about with "No Man's Sky" and it's various updates. We'd love to hear if you do play it. Which updates specifically
put you over the edge. For us, it was "Next." We did a Before You Buy video on it. But that's really it, guys. We just wanted to have a conversation. So if you like this video all you gotta do is click the Like button. It helps us out very much. But we'll see you in the comments. Thanks for watching and
we'll see you guys next time.
Poor guy was running out of breath listing off all the updates lol.
No Man's Sky is a good game by now. BUT No Mans Sky is still not what the developers actually intended with the game.
It’s really great these days.
Forgive, but do not forget. I’m glad HG had the stones to see it through to where we are now, but there’s a reason why at launch it got memed into oblivion. I’m just glad it’s got there these days