Eight years after its rocky launch, No Man's Sky finally hits "Very Positive" reviews threshold on Steam

No Man’s Sky did not get off to the smoothest of begins, however eight years after its controversial launch, Whats up Video games’ exploratory house sim has reached a major milestone, lastly gaining sufficient beneficial participant evaluations on Steam to shift its total score to “Very Optimistic”.

When No Man’s Sky launched again in August 2016, participant sentiment was such that it shortly discovered itself damned with an “Overwhelming Damaging” score on Steam. It took two years and various important updates for No Man’s Sky to safe sufficient optimistic evaluations that its common tipped over to “Blended”, after which an extra three years after to that to achieve an all-time person evaluation common of “Principally Optimistic” in 2021.

As Whats up Video games’ Tim Woodley defined on the time, “Every share level turns into exponentially more durable to earn as you progress up the scores. Shifting from 20 % optimistic to 21 % optimistic might solely require a couple of hundred optimistic evaluations whereas shifting from 69 % to 70 % wanted 10,000 optimistic evaluations. This is the reason it is so uncommon for video games to alter their All-Time score and why we would assumed that we would by no means be capable of.”

One other three years – and a complete of 35 free content material updates – later, No Man’s Sky has lastly achieved the seemingly inconceivable, turning its preliminary “Overwhelmingly Damaging” score into “Very Optimistic”. Meaning 80 % of its 245,857 Steam evaluations are optimistic – which is to says it is secured 196,686 blue thumbs up versus 49,171 purple thumbs down. Addressing the milestone, studio boss Sean Murray wrote, “Holy shit you guys – it occurred. ALL REVIEWS: Very Optimistic. Thanks, thanks, thanks. You don’t have any concept what this implies to us.”

No Man’s Sky’s subsequent problem, then, will likely be to nudge into the distinguished “Overwhelming Postive” class inhabited by the likes of Sekiro, Persona 5, Baldur’s Gate 3, Stardew Valley, Hades, Lifeless Cells, the Silent Hill 2 remake, and Half-Life: Alyx. That is a considerably harder objective, nevertheless, requiring 95 % of life-time evaluations to be optimistic. In different phrases, assuming No Man’s Sky does not obtain a single unfavourable evaluation from this level ahead, it will need a complete of 983,420 optimistic evaluations – or 786,734 greater than it has now. By which level the precise universe is likely to be 16 minutes away from obliteration.

Regardless, the shift to “Very Optimistic” remains to be an unimaginable achievement, and testomony to the unimaginable work Whats up Video games has put into its house sim during the last eight years. No Man’s Sky’s most up-to-date replace launched earlier this month, introducing cross-save assist, PlayStation 5 Professional enhancements, and the return of Mass Impact’s Normandy. It is the sixth main replace this 12 months, following on from October’s spooky The Cursed (which, amongst different issues, launched flying saucer ships for gamers), whereas different 2024 additions have included fishing, refreshed house stations, and a large world technology overhaul.

Up subsequent for Whats up Video games is its procedural planet journey Gentle No Fireplace, which we have not had an replace on since final 12 months’s reveal. Maybe we’ll lastly see extra throughout December’s The Recreation Awards, however regardless, it seems like No Man’s Sky journey is way from over.