No Man's Sky's biggest Steam player count boom in 9 years sees it topple behemoths Banana and Bongo Cat, and Hello Games boss Sean Murray is delighted: "God sends his toughest battles for his strongest soldiers"

As No Man's Sky reaches its highest Steam player count since launch, Hello Games' founder is celebrating the milestone of surpassing two of Steam's heaviest hitters.

No Man's Sky celebrated its ninth anniversary about a month ago, and while Hello Games were a touch late to it, the game got the No Man's Sky: Voyagers update at the end of August. And after years of "guys, it's actually really good now," the game has reached its highest Steam player count since it launched back in 2016.

According to SteamDB, No Man's Sky peaked at its launch with 212,613 players jumping in at release. After a disappointing launch, its player count averaged in the 1,000 to 2,000 range, with the biggest spike occurring with 2018's Next update, which increased it to 97,723. Since then, the game has kept a healthy player count (averaging over 10,000 per month since 2020), with each major update giving the game a bit of a spike; however, it never quite reached that 97,000 until now.

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The release of the No Man's Sky: Voyagers update on August 27 brought its best performance since launch. And now, this past weekend overtook the post-update number with an even better performance, reaching a high of 110,893 players on Sunday, September 7; especially impressive considering Hollow Knight: Silksong's impressive peak has been taking player bandwidth this month.

Hello Games founder Sean Murray celebrated the game's new milestone on Twitter, not by focusing on the number, but by highlighting the games it had managed to beat. While No Man's Sky beat out the likes of GTA 5 and Baldur's Gate 3, Murray focused on the real behemoths, saying, "Above Banana and Bongo Cat. God sends his toughest battles for his strongest soldiers."

Sadly, though, No Man's Sky wasn't powerful enough to beat Bongo Cat's 24-hour peak of 126,595, but it did manage to take out Banana, which peaked at 106,422. You may think that gaining the trust of players after a disastrous launch was the game's biggest achievement, but managing to beat Banana is the sign that No Man's Sky has finally made it as far as I'm concerned.

"Every day we stray further from god": No Man's Sky boss Sean Murray faces the consequences of his actions as players attack his eyes with cursed ships in the Voyagers update.