Hello Games boss Sean Murray has a soft spot for the day-one version of No Man's Sky, for all its faults and all the hard work associated with it. As the dramatically expanded space survival game turns 10 years old, he still occasionally plays that launch version himself.
I spoke to Murray about the past 10 years of No Man's Sky, and I asked him how the game we have today compares to the original idea for what No Man's Sky would be.
"It's interesting. You know, I sometimes see that in the community," he responds. "They'll often talk about the 'vision' of the game. Some people will be like, 'Pathfinder. That was the vision of the game. That was when we reached the vision.' And some people will be like, 'It was there at launch.' And some people are like, 'We still haven't hit the vision,' or, 'We [hit it] now.'
"A game is obviously owned by the players, the people who play it. So they all have a different, nebulous idea of what that game is and what their perfect version of No Man's Sky is. And I sort of see us trying to navigate through that and deliver those things for some of those people."
As he navigates those differing expectations, Murray finds the original version of No Man's Sky to be grounding. "I've gone back to the release version. Not often, but every now and then," he says. "And personally, when I go back, I feel real pride in it. I really love what that game was."
You might assume that the original version of the game is a pain point for Murray. No Man's Sky's blossoming hasn't changed the fact that its launch "was really hard mentally," he says, but that also hasn't soured the memory of the game that he and his team built.
"I personally really enjoy it when I'm playing it," he continues. "It has a really weird, esoteric feel, and I think it feels quite different to lots of other games. It does feel quite barebones in places, but I kind of enjoy that. There's a charm to it. It feels weird, and it feels almost like more of an indie game, more niche, which is kind of my taste to some extent. I'm kind of into that."
For all the many, many updates and features that have come to No Man's Sky, Murray believes that weird, charming, alienating experience still beats in the game's heart.
"If I play [No Man's Sky] today, it has really evolved," he reflects. "You can do so many things now. You can play multiplayer and build your own ships, have crazy fleets of freighters and all sorts of things. But every couple of weeks, I need to start a new save on No Man's Sky and do a playthrough, and when that happens, I still have that feeling. Especially if I've been away from the game for a little bit, I've maybe been on holiday or something, I come back and do get that little kick. Just putting on my headphones, being alone on a planet, fixing up my ship, playing through one of our Expeditions or something.
"I do think that core is still there. I don't know if vision is too pretentious a word, but that was always the core of what we were trying to do. I see it in that release version, and I still think it's there today. But I love that there are all these other things it can be, and I love that I can have some massive space battle or build a huge base to call home. I love all of that being there as well. But it doesn't interfere, for me, with that core thing of just being chilled out, headphones on, listening to the music, exploring the planet a little bit."
