Today, UK independent developer Hello Games celebrates the tenth anniversary of No Man's Sky , by far its biggest and most popular title. For the occasion, studio founder and managing director Sean Murray shared a lengthy letter with the community, reminiscing about everything that happened throughout this decade: 40 major (and free) updates , as well as ports to practically every noteworthy gaming platform except for mobile.
Murray highlights that " tens of millions of players " have been in the game, spending hundreds of millions of hours exploring the nearly infinite universe (to this date, they've discovered less than 1% of the planets ). Moreover, the game saw its highest player figures since launch in 2026 , and the developer is far from done, teasing the next ' COSMOS ' update. Those interested in the upcoming title Light No Fire got a nod, too, as Murray noted that the team is still "busy cooking" on that one.
Ten years ago, on 9th August 2016, Travellers across the universe set foot on their first alien planet in No Man’s Sky. Perhaps you were there ten years ago, or maybe you joined later. It’s very cool to me that all around the universe, other Travellers have woken up on countless other planets, light-years apart from each other. They took their first steps on their first planet and brought a new, unexplored universe into existence together. Since then, millions of players have made No Man’s Sky their home, created insane bases, built communities, made friends, and built really creative custom ships.
For any game to reach its ten-year milestone is impressive, and I think that is especially true for No Man’s Sky. It’s really a testament to the passion of the team here and of the players for the game that this year we’ve seen our highest player numbers since launch and won a TGA and BAFTA for best evolving game.
Over the last decade, the No Man’s Sky players have joined us in another type of journey as we grew, expanded, and deepened what No Man’s Sky could be. With now 40 major updates, all free, we have expanded our sandbox universe with base-building, exocraft, settlements, mechs, pets, living ships, expeditions, and rebuilt the universe several times over. Support for Switch, XBox, VR, PSVR, Switch 2 , PS5, XBX, and more has been added along the way. In fact, No Man’s Sky is supported on about as many platforms as there are team members!
It became a bit of a meme at the time, me holding up the gold master disc of No Man’s Sky, but I’m proud to say that most of the people in that photo are still at Hello. The No Man’s Sky team has evolved over that period, of course, but it is not really that much bigger. Since then, tens of millions of Travellers have spent hundreds of millions of hours exploring and sharing their discoveries and the universe is more vibrant now than it ever has been. Voyagers released last year saw more players than we’ve had since launch… and still, all these years later, players have explored less than 1% of the planets in No Man’s Sky.
In a similar way, our small team feels we have a lot left to explore in what No Man’s Sky can be. In the background, we are busy cooking on our next game, Light No Fire, and big things for the future of No Man’s Sky, with the tease of our upcoming update titled “COSMOS”. More will follow!
Those who kept up with industry news a decade ago will undoubtedly recall the difficulties the game encountered at launch . Aside from technical issues, there was also the matter of the product not matching the pre-launch hype; users compiled lists of missing features that Hello Games had promised , and the UK's Advertising Standards Authority even investigated whether the studio had misled customers. No wrongdoing was found , though, and Hello Games slowly but surely improved the game until No Man's Sky turned out to be one of the most shining examples of a comeback from a negative early reception.
In September 2021, roughly at the midpoint of this decade, the game's Steam page finally displayed ' Mostly Positive ' user reviews , showing that the community's sentiment had changed. Nowadays, No Man's Sky sits at a comfortable ' Very Positive ' consensus on Valve's platform.
About the author : With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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