Tag: Hello Games

No Man’s Sky Dropping Beyond Update This Summer


No Man’s Sky is seeing another big content drop this year in the form of Beyond, set to launch this summer. Not a whole lot of information is available right now, however Beyond appears to be an overhaul to the game’s online multiplayer mode.

As stated by Hello Games founder Sean Murray:

“No Man’s Sky Online includes a radical new social and multiplayer experience which empowers players everywhere in the universe to meet and play together. While this brings people together like never before, and has many recognizable online elements, we don’t consider No Man’s Sky to be an MMO — it won’t require a subscription, won’t contain microtransactions, and will be free for all existing players.”

More information on Beyond is set to release in the coming weeks.

Source: Playstation Blog

No Man’s Sky Pushes Abyss Update Today, Go Underwater


The latest free update for No Man’s Sky is now available. Dubbed The Abyss, players are introduced to a new aquatic environment rich with additional flora and fauna, new vehicles, updated graphics, and more.

  • Aquatic Missions and Narrative: A new story, The Dreams of the Deep, brings a new context to the depths and a dark narrative to No Man’s Sky. Players are invited to discover the fate of a troubled crew stranded from a freighter crash by the rising tides or explore underwater ruins to uncover the tale of a lost soul trapped deep beneath the waves.
  • Submarine Vehicle: Master the depths of planets using a new Exocraft, the Nautilon. This submersible vehicle gives new meaning to underwater navigation, combat and mining – and can be summoned to any ocean on the planet, as well as docked at underwater buildings. Players can upgrade the submersible with installable Submarine Technology and customise the Nautilon to stand out from their fellow explorers.
  • Submersible Building Modules: More than a dozen new base parts have been added to unlock more creative possibilities underwater. Players can construct the new Marine Shelter for brief respite from the oceanic pressure, and use its protection to reach new depths. New glass corridors, viewing bays and multi-storey submersible view domes provide travellers the perfect view of the surrounding ocean. Players can now bring their aquatic life into a habitat with a decorative indoor aquarium.
  • Flora and Fauna: The variety and visual quality of underwater biomes has been greatly improved. Players can now experience rare exotic aquatic biomes as they explore new depths. Underwater creatures have become more frequent, and more interesting. Aquatic life inhabits the full depth of the ocean, and unique terrifying creatures can be encountered on the ocean floor.
  • Sunken Wrecks and Ancient Treasures: Investigate sunken ruins and find ancient treasures or dive to submerged buildings to find remnants of their lost occupants. Discover and scavenge lost cargo from gigantic freighter wrecks. Use the terrain manipulator to excavate treasures buried in the nearby ocean floor. Find and repair rare crashed star ships to restore them from the seabed to the skies.

The Abyss update is the first major content update since No Man’s Sky NEXT dropped earlier this year, and is available on all platforms.

No Man’s Sky: Steam Concurrency Explodes With New Update


Somewhere the folks at Hello Games must be breaking out the champagne. Following the launch of its latest update, dubbed NEXT, No Man’s Sky has seen a population explosion on PC. Steam figures currently show a concurrent user count of just under 50 thousand, up from a peak of two thousand in June. Reviews have similarly seen a dramatic increase, up to an 83% “very positive” rating. In addition, No Man’s Sky is currently available for a 50% discount, down to $29.99.

Coinciding the the launch of the Xbox One version, No Man’s Sky’s latest update NEXT introduces a number of improvements to the game, including the multiplayer mode, an extensive visual overhaul, unlimited base building, and commanding freighters. For more information on the NEXT update, check out the trailer below, and the patch notes here.

No Man’s Sky Hits Xbox One This Year


Hello Games has officially announced the launch of No Man’s Sky on Xbox One as well as a massive update coming to PC and PS4 this year. Dubbed No Man’s Sky Next, the update will be free, however we do not have any information on what will be included with it in terms of new content. Hello Games has called it “an important next step on a longer journey for us and the community.”

“We are calling this No Man’s Sky NEXT because it is an important next step in a journey for No Man’s Sky, for Hello Games and for our devoted community,” said Sean Murray, founder at Hello Games. “Each update for No Man’s Sky has been more successful than the last; this was especially true of our last update Atlas Rises. It emboldens the team to push ourselves further. This journey is far from over, and it’s exciting to be working again on something you know will surprise people.”

The Xbox version of No Man’s Sky will be distributed by 505 Games who you may recognize from their publisher roles for games like the Sniper Elite series, Portal Knights, and Rocket League. A firm launch date has not been set.

(Source: Press Release)

[NM] One Year Later, No Man’s Sky Explodes In Users, Positive Reviews


If No Man’s Sky can teach us anything about the industry, it’s that you’re never too late for a second chance. Launched August 12, 2016, No Man’s Sky launched in a rather horrible state: Players quickly realized that the game had effectively been launched in early access, just without the tag or many of the promised features. No Man’s Sky was slammed in reviews and more than 90% of the population who bought the game on Steam abandoned it in month #1. It also spawned a lot of memes including this video which succinctly sums up the difference between the hype and final product.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5jWtz3rzco

Since then, something miraculous has been happening with rather little fanfare: Hello Games has released quite a large number of updates, tweaking the game and adding in a metric ton of new content. The Foundation update added in new game modes, the Pathfinder update improved visuals, introduced permadeath, and gave more of a reason to build yourself a base. This is also alongside numerous patches adding quality of life improvements, and other new features to give players a reason to keep going. Most recently, Hello Games deployed the Atlas Rises update, bringing 30 hours of story content, new worlds, and more.

And the result? The population has exploded. As of this writing, recent reviews of No Man’s Sky show a 75% approval rating and there are over 10,000 people playing at 11 a.m. on a Monday morning. As more and more people return to, or try out No Man’s Sky for the first time, it looks like No Man’s Sky is finally turning into the game that Hello Games promised it would be more than a year ago.

Just goes to show what can be done when a developer focuses on improving a product rather than immediately abandoning it after a bad launch.

No Man’s Sky: The Game That Broke Refund Policies


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The list of unfulfilled promises for No Man’s Sky is at least a mile long, and you can read it for yourself, but those looking to escalate the situation to a full refund may have found an ally: Valve themselves. While Sony and Microsoft have proven unwilling to refund digital purchases even in cases of fraud, the refund policy at Valve is simple: Two hours of gameplay or two weeks after purchase, whichever comes first. In rare cases, where a game is either broken or misleadingly advertised, they make an exception.

Such is the case with No Man’s Sky, where players are reporting that not only is Valve processing refunds, but so is Sony on the Playstation 4. Various Reddit threads are filling up with players revealing that Valve, Sony, and Amazon are all processing refunds for No Man’s Sky digital and physical purchases (in the case of Amazon).

In the two weeks since its launch on PC, No Man’s Sky has plummeted in peak players from over two hundred thousand to under twenty thousand.

steamchart

In the case of Steam, users are recommending submitting multiple refund requests if the first one or two are rejected, and that users should cite false advertising as their reason for requesting a refund. Amazon and Good Old Games have been quite lenient according to reports with Amazon’s live chat being more than helpful in processing refunds. For Playstation, one user recommended using the following in your refund request:

“The game lacks many features that were advertised and I’ve experienced multiple crashes.”

According to a few reports via Reddit, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the only store giving a hard time for refunds is the No Man’s Sky official website. Users on Neogaf are also compiling a list of successful refund stories.

In the two weeks since its launch, No Man’s Sky developer Hello Games has faced intense backlash over allegations that the company misled customers into purchasing the game, heavily advertising features just months before launch that were either released incomplete or removed from the game altogether.