Looking again: No Man’s Sky is the longest-running labor of affection I can recall in over forty years of gaming. Since its launch in August 2016, Hello Games has shoveled numerous man-hours into it, producing greater than two dozen iterations with out asking for a dime over its retail price–no subscriptions, no microtransactions, and fully free DLC.
Granted, the sport acquired off to a really tough begin, partly because of Sony demanding the studio rush an unfinished product out the door and partly because of Sean Murray overhyping and misrepresenting it. However, Hello Games has turned it right into a Cinderella story, redeeming itself for the dumpster-fire launch.
The builders have labored virtually solely on No Man’s Sky for almost eight years post-launch. In 2020, they launched The Last Campfire, however HG continued placing out NMS content material all through that sport’s improvement. In the 4 years between the two, HG pushed out 94 No Man’s Sky patches, with 12 being main content material packages.
First 4 years of No Man’s Sky Updates
- Foundation – November 2016
- Pathfinder – March 2017
- Atlas Rises – August 2017
- Next – July 2018
- The Abyss – October 2018
- Visions – November 2018
- Beyond – August 2019
- Synthesis – November 2019
- Living Ship – February 2020
- Exo Mech – April 2020
- Crossplay – June 2020
- Desolation – July 2020
So when will it finish? Hello Games cannot simply preserve pumping out free content material without end – not with out some sort of monetization. No Man’s Sky’s newest replace could maintain a clue.
On Thursday, HG pushed one other large content material drop for NMS referred to as Omega. I imagine this may be No Man’s Sky’s final main replace for a number of causes.
First, it is all in the title. Omega means the finish. As Merriam-Webster defines it: “The excessive or closing half,” additionally, ” one thing or somebody designated with the title omega or the Greek letter ω particularly denoting the final in place, order, or class.” So it looks like a wink and a nod to it being the final iteration.
Mind you, Hello Games doesn’t explicitly point out anyplace in its patch notes that that is the finish of NMS improvement. Definitely take my hypothesis with a grain of salt. However, I’m not simply making my assumption primarily based solely on the replace’s title.
Hello Games additionally introduced it is making No Man’s Sky free-to-play over the subsequent few days. Starting yesterday, anybody can play NMS. The free trial lasts till 6 pm GMT on Monday, February 19. If you’ve by no means performed it, it undoubtedly value a go for gratis.
By itself, this doesn’t point out that Hello Games is ending NMS improvement both. However, one final push to get new gamers does make sense if you find yourself about to shut the books on a mission, particularly in gentle of my closing important level. The most vital motive I believe HG is wrapping it up is that it’s making ready to go full gear into Light No Fire improvement.
In December, Sean Murray introduced Light No Fire at the 2023 Game Awards Show. The title appears to be like like No Man’s Sky set in a fantasy realm. In reality, judging by the trailer, it clearly makes use of the NMS engine. Therefore, a lot of the exhausting work is already carried out, though, Murray mentioned it is an much more bold mission. Considering the shear quantity of content material in its epic area opera, that is a really excessive bar.
The sport nonetheless has no launch date, and there are most likely hours of writing left to do. It has some distinctive character fashions, however there are doubtless many extra the workforce must create. So we’re most likely speaking a few vital quantity of improvement left. Even so, contemplating all the free work the studio has carried out over the final seven-and-a-half years, it’s doubtless seeking to get Light No Fire out as quickly as attainable.
Will it abandon No Man’s Sky completely in the meantime? Probably not. It nonetheless has seasonal expeditions. The newest is the eponymous Omega Expedition. There are additionally bug and QoL patches that can proceed rolling out as wanted. In reality, shortly after launching Omega, builders needed to rush out the Omega 4.51 patch to repair stability on the Xbox.
The Omega replace has numerous thrilling content material, together with some nice rewards for finishing the expedition, shared expedition loot, pirating pirate dreadnoughts, and extra. If it’s NMS’s final replace, it is going out with a bang, quite than a whimper. Check out all the particulars in the No Man’s Sky Patch Notes.