‘No Man’s Sky,’ A Journey From Limelight And Into The Abyss

One of the biggest disappointment in gaming this year was "No Man's Sky." The game went from "Highly Anticipated" to instant disappointment in just a couple of months from launch.

"No Man's Sky" was one of those indie games popping up in conferences and expo's that leave the audience and participants in that last minute awe moment. The game was revealed during Spike TV's VGX awards in 2013, and it hyped the gaming community immediately. GameRant wrote in 2013: "Just when you thought the video game overload of two next-gen consoles, news of Steam Machines and awards season was making the community even more desensitized and skeptical than ever, Hello Games swoops in to save the day," after witnessing the game's world premiere announcement on Dec. 7, 2013.

The brainchild of a four-man indie video game development studio called Hello Games. The trailer shown on VGX 2013 was made from a very limited budget on a very ambitious project. The game caught the attention of Sony Interactive Entertainment who then decided to support the game's development. E3 2014, "No Man's Sky" became the very first indie game showcased by Sony during one of its center stage presentation. The game's first scheduled release was on June 21, 2016, according to Engadget, with a $60 price tag and $150 "Explorer's Edition." However, a month before the scheduled release, Hello Games and Sony announced a change in the game's launch date to Aug. 9, 2016.

The game promised a space adventure, exploration, combat, and survival featuring 18 quintillion unique discoverable planets. But after seven days from the game's launch, the complaints started pouring in and a long list of missing promised features was presented, features like "Planetary physics, Ship classes with meaningful differentiation, Faction reputation with meaningful gameplay impact, Homogenous resource availability, Asteroid landings are just the tip of the iceberg," based on Fraghero's article. Sean Murray and his team worked on the issues immediately but bad publicity already consumed everything.

On the brighter side, Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios President Shawn Layden in defense of Sean Murray. Layden states that Sean Murray and his Team had "an incredible vision of what they were going to create." He also mentioned that the team is getting "closer to what their vision was," and that "Perhaps over time, it'll reveal itself to be all that it can be," per NicheGamer.