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With marketing departments hellbent on generating hype prior to a game's launch, and video games expected to be bigger and better with each console generation, there's a lot of pressure on new titles. Often a studio can misstep, over-promising or announcing games too early and inevitably paving the way for fan disappointment. The most notorious example of this in recent years is No Man's Sky. When Hello Games first announced No Man's Sky at E3, players and critics were blown away by the premise of the game and the ambition of the relatively small studio. With potentially billions of planets to explore, No Man's Sky had a lot to deliver. Sadly, the original game fell far short of what fans were expecting, and Hello Games became the recipient of a vitriolic backlash.
Almost six years later, No Man's Sky is an unrecognizable experience. It went from receiving poor to mixed reviews and unbridled player criticism, to winning the award for Best Evolving Game at the 2022 BAFTAs. This is quite a reversal of fortune, and is definitely not a journey that many maligned games can undertake. Now Hello Games has its sights set on a new title, which the studio has revealed is in early development, and fans might be understandably a little worried. Even more so after some recent comments from the studio's Managing Director, who hinted at another ambitious project that might match or even exceed No Man's Sky's scope.
No Man's Sky: Challenging Development and Aspirations
Developing a game is a process that can take many years, and it's always a difficult decision when it comes to what should be revealed and what should be kept secret until launch. Games want to appeal to players and sell themselves, while still maintaining a little mystery.
Studios also don't want to oversell what they're offering, which could lead to gamers expecting too much and then feeling deliberately misled once they get their hands on the game. No Man's Sky was a victim of inflated hype, but it was also clear that it had bitten off more than it could chew. Many features that Hello Games had promised before launch were absent, and the abundant world of interstellar exploration that players were expecting instead felt fairly sparse and procedural.
Hello Games have diligently worked to turn the title around, and No Man's Sky is now a great game with plenty for players to do. The team has even said that it is not finished updating No Man's Sky, with more content on the way to ensure that the game is in the best possible shape for years to come. With work still continuing on the 2016 title, fans may have been surprised to learn that Hello Games has also started work on its next big game.
Speaking with IGN, the studio's Managing Director Sean Murray said the new game was "the kind of project that even if we had a thousand people working on it, it'd still seem impossible.” While this statement is no doubt an exciting insight into the size and scope of the next title, it could cause a flutter of panic in some fans who remember the early days of No Man's Sky.
Lessons Learned for Hello Games
While it's always good to be cautious, players shouldn't be too worried that Hello Games is setting itself up for a repeat performance of its No Man's Sky woes. Murray did clarify that the team has "learned our lesson" when it comes to over-hyping a title and not following this up with deliverable features.
While Murray has previously said they "don't want to start talking about anything too early" to avoid the previous debacle, he did confirm that the new "huge" and "ambitious" title was underway. It's apparently being worked on by a small team, who have happily been plugging away at it in the background while work on No Man's Sky continues, so it's likely there won't be many updates on the new title for a while.
There appears to have been a bit of a sea change in the video game industry and its marketing in the last few years, partly due to the notorious struggles of games like No Man's Sky. The highly-anticipated Cyberpunk 2077 has had a similar trajectory post-launch, with fans initially feeling disappointed by the title's release, only for CD Projekt Red to commit to turning the game's reputation around with bug fixes and updates over the following months and years.
Studios seem to have grown a little wiser to the methods of marketing that can lead to tricky post-launch periods and disappointed hopes, with large titles like Bethesda's upcoming Starfield choosing to keep a lot of its features under wraps before its release instead of promising too much. Hello Games' next title has a lot to live up to, but the studio seems to know what it's doing this time around, and hopefully the examples of recent years have provided a valuable lesson for more than one developer.
No Man's Sky is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X, with a Nintendo Switch port scheduled for mid-2022.
