In the six years since No Man's Sky first launched, the title of the ambitious space game has gone from synonymous with arrogance to an example of redemption through hard work and dedication. In 2022, "making No Man's Sky" means saving a troubled game after a failed launch. The No Man's Sky 4.0 update is coming out October 7th, and creator Sean Murray tells us that while this patch doesn't have a lot of spectacle, it's full of quality-of-life improvements that continue to make the space RPG more fun and exciting. easier to play - whether you are a beginner or an experienced astronaut.
"They're not big, you can't take amazing screenshots with stuff like that," says Murray. "But they're really important to people playing."
Updates to a large number of versions for No Man's Sky came along with the launch on new platforms, and in 4.0 that platform is the Nintendo Switch. Players who have spent hundreds or even thousands of hours playing No Man's Sky - and Murray says people tend to play the game for a long time - will find that version 4.0 raises the level cap of ships and weapons, providing new reasons to go into space and hunt. for rare crafting materials.
New players will have an easier time getting to grips with the inventory system, as Murray says it has been redesigned to make it less overwhelming. The optimization of the inventory system also fixed some of the rough edges that had also annoyed long time players.
Hello Games has also redesigned the No Man's Sky survival game mode.
"I always thought [survival mode] was the best for the first few hours, and then it became less difficult and not too different from some of the other game modes,” Murray tells us. “I think we managed to make that feel a lot more different.”
While No Man's Sky is coming to Switch this week, it has already made its handheld debut in Steam Deck, where it surprised Murray and Hello Games with its popularity.
“He consistently ranked in the top five and top ten games played there,” says Murray. “We play well on PC in all areas, but especially in Steam Deckwhich is very interesting."
The development of the Switch version of No Man's Sky has brought about changes that make it more suitable for "on and off" handheld gaming, as Murray puts it, which will also benefit gamers in the Steam Deck. The save system in version 4.0, for example, permanently saves your game so you don't have to worry about returning to your ship or physical save point every time you want to end a session.
Again, not the kind of changes that usually make headlines, but impressive nonetheless. As Murray points out, the 4.0 update is unique in that it was preceded by a long string of content updates since 3.0 that added big new features to the space game fairly regularly. In May, the Leviathan update added space whales and a roguelike mode, followed by Endurance in July, which introduced instant warps, larger fleets, and Nexus missions. Update 4.0 revisits some of No Man's Sky's less impressive, but certainly no less important, fundamental systems.
While the story of No Man's Sky in the popular imagination is a long redemptive arc, for Murray and his team at Hello Games, it was about maintaining a constant balance between the joys and challenges of making games. He says he reads every review that is emailed to Hello Games and Twitter – it still goes straight to his phone and his smart watch. While there are too many to answer individually, Murray says he hopes player feedback will be reflected in updates to No Man's Sky. The game itself is part of this ongoing conversation.
“That's how I like to see it,” he says. “I hope this is how I feel. Honestly, this is what inspires confidence and what people want to see from us. People don't want to hear me, they want to know what's in the game. They don't want to know how I feel or anything like that, and I'm not interested in that side of things anyway."
Murray has learned a lot since preparing for the launch of No Man's Sky, and he seems to have come to a comfortable understanding of the sometimes uneasy relationship between the developers, the game, and its players.
"To me, the simple truth is that making games is really hard," he says as we discuss the difficulties CD Projekt Red have had in "pulling No Man's Sky" with Cyberpunk 2077. "It's a sign of how difficult it is each finds it hard. If you make a movie, you release it, and it's good or bad, right? If you make a game, and you make it bad, it's like making a movie, and then something goes wrong, people get stuck in the theater. Or no one can get into the cinema, everyone is standing outside. The cinema is on fire.
Murray says he sympathizes with players who are very passionate about the games they play because he sees himself as such a player.
“I don’t know how much other people care about games, right? But for me, it's something I'm very emotionally involved in," he says, a big smile on his face. “I'm sure that for other people, music is their business, or books, or movies, or something else. And I love all these things too. But the level of emotion I get when I'm playing GTFO or when I'm playing Diablo or I'm in VR... this Apex Legends win or this loss is amazing like nothing else, you know?"
No Man's Sky 4.0 releases October 7th.
