No Man’s Sky, a tale of one of the most infamous games in recent memory, and also one of the biggest comeback stories. The story of an indie developer studio who got picked up by Sony and had their pet project game put on E3 center stage. A galaxy-spanning survival game that got big, even bigger than Rust got with those RP servers lately.
We’re sure you’ve heard of this game or its development at some point. But, how much do you really know? Well, let’s take a look at some of the behind-the-scenes stuff.
10 The Original E3 Trailer Was Absolutely Scripted
E3 2014, the event where Hello Games passion project was first revealed to the world. A rare instance where an indie game got to be on the main stage, something that still needs to happen more often. Say what you want about the game itself, but this reveal trailer was a masterpiece in so many ways. It left those watching with so many questions about how the game would be played.
And, one of the biggest aspects of this trailer was the fact that Sean Murray said that it “wasn’t scripted”. But, sadly, that has been confirmed to not be the truth anymore, thanks to some dedicated internet detectives. This trailer was absolutely scripted, just like Cyberpunk’s 2018 trailer was.
9 The Game Was A Pet Project Of Sean’s Early On
So, many of you might not know this, but No Man’s Sky wasn’t the first title to come out of Hello Games. Actually, the company found success in another game entirely called Joe Danger.
It was their first completed project since starting their own company, and they were working on Joe Danger 2 at the time No Man’s Sky became a reality. To put it simply, the initial concept for the game was something of a side project for Sean Murray, who had the idea to make a completely procedurally generated game.
8 A Danish Mathematician Accused Them Of Stealing His Formula
It’s easy to think about procedural generation as some magic tool that game developers just plug assets into and move on, but it’s not that easy. And, for a game like No Man’s Sky where every little thing is procedural, the process is even more complex.
During the development of the game, there was even a period where the company was accused of using the “superformula” thought up by a very smart man named Johan Gielis. But, this turned out to be a non-issue, as the company assured Gielis’ company, Genicap, that their formula was not being illegally used in the slightest.
7 Their 3-Year Legal Battle With Sky Group Limited
Speaking of legal battles with Hello Games, almost no one knows about the fact that they were actually in a three-year legal battle with a UK Comcast subsidiary named Sky Group Limited. Somehow, this company owns the word “Sky”, and they had even previously won a suit against Microsoft’s OneDrive software, forcing them to change the original name of SkyDrive.
Most of this legal back-and-forth between Hello Games and Sky will never see the light of day. But, what we do know, is that it lasted for over three years, there was a settlement at the end, and Hello Games managed to succeed where Microsoft couldn’t.
6 Review Copies Of The Game Weren’t Given Out To PC Players
It’s been a long time, so it’s fair if you don’t remember, but No Man’s Sky actually had a lot of drama surrounding its release and review embargo. While the PS4 review copies were sent out only a few days before the game launch, no PC review codes were even mentioned or distributed at all.
Usually, when something like this happens, it means the developers at least wanted to get day one sales done before all the negative press came in from reviews. But, since there was already a leaked copy of NMS out in the wild and retailers were breaking the street date (which happens often, you just don’t know about it most of the time), it was extra odd that Hello Games was so silent on the PC Review copies.
5 Post-Release Staff Expansion
You might think that after Sony put so much money into hyping up No Man’s Sky, that the dev team at Hello Games must have increased in size to match the new expectations. But, that’s incorrect, as their staff size only increased after the game was already out.
Yes, a small staff of 10-15 people was the group who actually did all of the work on the initial release of NMS. Nowadays, their studio sits at around 20-25 people, but most of this hiring came right after launch, likely so that the team could have more people to focus solely on future updates and patches.
4 Their Entire Office Was Flooded Over X-Mas 2013
It’s not often that the actual office of a game studio makes the headlines. You just don’t tend to think about developer offices look like all that often. Well, we can tell you what Hello Game’s office looked like on Christmas Eve in 2013 about halfway submerged in river water.
Apparently, a river broke its bank near the office, and all that water had to go somewhere. Luckily, the company had backups of all their work, so not much developmental data was lost, but it was still a very unique situation, to say the least.
3 Sean Murray Sort Of Had To Be The Marketing Guy
Here’s the thing about Sean Murray, he’s not a marketing or interview guy. Before NMS, no one outside the industry really knew his name. He was the Technical Lead for a few games back in the day (some Burnout games and the first-person shooter made by Criterion Games titled “Black”), and he was great at his job.
But, once again, Hello Games was the studio sold his home for, it was small, so there weren’t many employees. So, it fell on Sean to go out there and answer all the questions, with answers that may not have done him many favors looking back on them now, such as the infamous multi-player question that got debunked on day one, though it assuredly is very much in the game nowadays.
2 Intentional Post-Release Silence From Devs
Many of you who were following Hello Games on social media might remember the harrowing silence from the company after the 1.0 version of No Man’s Sky came out. The game was a mess and nothing like what was promised, the fans were outraged, and any gaming publication was throwing massive shade at the company. Yet, with all that white noise, Hello Games remained completely quiet.
But then, all of a sudden, they started tweeting again. What was discovered later through interviews is that this was actually a conscious decision on Sean’s part, as he told the team to keep away from social media, and focus on fixing the game. Then, he took all of the negative responses to the game, categorized them into the most helpful complaints, and used that as a sort of laundry list for what they should improve.
1 Hello Games Could’ve Abandoned The Fans, But Chose Not To
Hello Games made tens of millions of dollars off of No Man’s Sky, even with all the backlash on release. And, contrary to popular belief, they weren’t under some contract to “fix” the game after it came out in a disappointing state. In fact, it probably would’ve been easier for both their physical and mental health in the long run if they just left the game as it was and moved on to greener pastures.
But, they didn’t, they’ve spent years updating the game piece-by-piece, attempting to put all the features they originally promised into the game such as space battles, base building, or even the most recent companions update. And, while they haven’t managed to do everything, the version of No Man’s Sky we have now and the one that was originally released are like night and day. It even has next-gen updates!
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