After a Decade of No Man's Sky, Players Have Explored Less Than 1% of the Planets

No Man’s Sky developer Hello Games is celebrating its 10-year day with a fewer eye-catching stats and a tease for the upcoming update.

The hotly anticipated No Man’s Sky launched connected August 9, 2016 connected PS4 and PC to tens of thousands of antagonistic reviews connected Steam, with players complaining astir breached promises and a deficiency of meaningful content, peculiarly connected the multiplayer side. The crippled rapidly settled connected the dreaded ‘overwhelmingly negative’ Steam idiosyncratic reappraisal rating, a wide motion to anyone who visited its Steam leafage that thing was precise wrong.

But Guildford, England-based developer Hello Games continued to update No Man’s Sky implicit the years, improving subordinate sentiment to the constituent wherever it is present considered superb. It took 2 years to deed ‘mixed,’ past different 3 to deed ‘mostly positive.’ At the time, 5 years aft launch, Tim Woodley, Head of Publishing astatine Hello Games, explained however hard it was to claw backmost Steam idiosyncratic reviews from specified a debased base. No Man’s Sky present sits connected ‘very positive’ connected Steam idiosyncratic reviews.

No Man's Sky has seen a batch of updates implicit the past 10 years. Image credit: Hello Games.

Today, Hello Games improvement main Sean Murray penned a enactment to fans expressing his delight that No Man’s Sky has stood the trial of time, confirming that this twelvemonth has seen the game's highest subordinate numbers since launch. Murray adjacent revealed an eye-catching stat: adjacent now, a decennary aft launch, players person explored little than 1% of the planets successful No Man’s Sky.

No Man’s Sky features a procedurally generated deterministic unfastened satellite universe, which includes implicit 18 quintillion planets (18,446,744,073,709,551,616 to beryllium exact). Ahead of No Man’s Sky’s release, Hello Games told IGN it would instrumentality 585 cardinal years to spot them all. So yes, little than 1% sounds astir right. That's a batch of video crippled planets that are up and moving but volition ne'er beryllium seen!

Murray besides utilized the day to tease No Man’s Sky’s adjacent update, Cosmos, proving that enactment for the crippled volition proceed beyond the 10-year mark. Hello Games is besides engaged moving connected its adjacent game, Light No Fire, which is astir adventure, building, endurance and exploration together, acceptable connected a phantasy satellite the size of Earth. We haven't heard thing astir it since it was revealed astatine The Game Awards 2023.

Sean Murray’s unfastened missive to No Man’s Sky fans successful full:

Wesley is Director, News astatine IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].