No Man’s Sky is celebrating its 10th anniversary today (at least in Europe, as the game came out on August 9, 2016 in the US) and Sean Murray, CEO and co-founder of developer Hello Games, has issued a statement to mark the occasion and offer his thanks to fans.
The story of No Man’s Sky is quite interesting. It arrived on the back of a wave of hype, although when it did see the light of day it was heavily criticised for failing to deliver on the promises made by Murray and the development team. Many fans were disappointed in its lack of content and lacking the ambition that pre-release hype had built up.
Nonetheless, Hello Games listened to feedback, and over the years managed to turn things around substantially thanks to the release of multiple expansions and updates. Not only only that, but the game expanded to multiple formats beyond just PS4 and PC, with No Man’s Sky having now graced the likes of PS5, PSVR, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and Nintendo Switch.
These days it’s a completely different beast to how the game was at launch, with new updates still rolling out 10 years later. Here’s Murray’s full statement and a 10th anniversary trailer.
Hello!
I feel surprisingly emotional today. Ten years ago, on 9th August 2016, travellers across the universe set foot on their first alien planet in No Man’s Sky.
Perhaps you were there ten years ago, or maybe you joined later. It’s very cool to me that all around the universe, other Travellers have woken up on countless other planets, light years apart from each other. They took their first steps on their first planet and brought a new unexplored universe into existence together.
Since then millions of players have made No Man’s Sky their home, created insane bases, built communities, made friends, and built really creative custom ships. For any game to reach its ten-year milestone is impressive and I think that is especially true for No Man’s Sky. It’s really a testament to the passion of the team here and of the players for the game, that this year we’ve seen our highest player numbers since launch, and won a TGA and BAFTA for best evolving game.
Over the last decade, the No Man’s Sky players have joined us in another type of journey as we grew, expanded and deepened what No Man’s Sky could be. With now 40 major updates, all free, we have expanded our sandbox universe with base-building, exocraft, settlements, mechs, pets, living ships, expeditions and rebuilt the universe several times over. Support for Switch, XBox, VR, PSVR, Switch 2, PS5, XBX and more has been added along the way. In fact No Man’s Sky is supported on about as many platforms as there are team members!
I consider myself exceedingly lucky to work with the people I do, on a game I love with one of the nicest communities in video games. If you’re reading this, then it is because you have shown us a kindness over that period. Big or small that helps Hello Games do what we do. For that I am truly grateful.