No Man’s Sky developer Hello Games has hailed hitting a ‘very optimistic’ Steam consumer evaluate consumer score for the primary time, eight years after the sport’s controversial launch was slammed by gamers.
Space sim No Man’s Sky launched in August 2016 on PS4 and PC to tens of 1000’s of unfavorable evaluations on Steam, with gamers complaining about damaged guarantees and an absence of significant content material, significantly on the multiplayer facet. The recreation shortly settled on the dreaded ‘overwhelmingly unfavorable’ Steam consumer evaluate score, a transparent signal to anybody who visited its Steam web page that one thing was very fallacious.
But Guildford, England-based Hello Games has continued to replace No Man’s Sky over time, bettering participant sentiment to the purpose the place it’s now thought of very good. It took two years to hit ‘combined,’ then one other three to hit ‘principally optimistic.’ At the time, 5 years after launch, Tim Woodley, Head of Publishing at Hello Games, defined how arduous it was to claw again Steam consumer evaluations from such a low base.
“Over the final 5 years we have moved from ‘overwhelmingly unfavorable’ to ‘principally optimistic,’ it is an unimaginable achievement for the crew,” he stated.
“Moving to ‘combined’, which can appear humorous to have a good time, took two years of arduous work. Moving from ‘combined’ to ‘principally optimistic’ has taken the final three years (understanding that any small mistake alongside the best way might end in backlash and unfavorable evaluations).
“In some methods, it is simple to dismiss Steam evaluations, it is a bit of meme to share the foolish ones, however as a developer, they’re undeniably significant. For 5 years now if somebody purchased No Man’s Sky they needed to do it regardless of a purple or yellow warning image beside our title (and affecting the probability algorithm in command of displaying the title within the first place).
“The crew is basically happy in the present day at hitting this milestone however we additionally owe an enormous thanks to the neighborhood, the gamers, but in addition of us like your self who proceed to help us to do that work we take pleasure in.
“Each proportion level turns into exponentially tougher to earn as you progress up the rankings. Moving from 20% optimistic to 21% optimistic might solely require a couple of hundred optimistic evaluations whereas transferring from 69% to 70% wanted 10,000 optimistic evaluations. This is why it is so uncommon for video games to vary their All-Time score and why we might assumed that we’d by no means be capable of.”
Now, three years after that milestone, No Man’s Sky is on ‘very optimistic.’ Next cease, ‘overwhelmingly optimistic?’
— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) November 28, 2024
Hello Games chief Sean Murray, who had come beneath hearth upon Hello Games’ launch for failing to ship on options he’d talked up in pre-release interviews, hailed the sport’s new Steam consumer evaluate score. “Holy shit you guys – it occurred,” he tweeted. “ALL REVIEWS: Very Positive. Thank you Thank you Thank you. You don’t know what this implies to us.”
As Hello Games continues to work on No Man’s Sky, it’s growing its subsequent recreation, Light No Fire. It’s about journey, constructing, survival and exploration collectively, set on a fantasy planet the dimensions of Earth.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
