Why are people still romanticizing No Man’s Sky’s “redemption” arc?
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This might be unpopular, but it feels like the “redemption” story around No Man’s Sky has become more of a cultural comfort narrative than an honest look at what happened.
Let’s be real — most of those updates were just delivering delayed promises, not generosity. The game we were originally sold was missing a lot of advertised features, and Hello Games never actually apologized for lying. On top of that, every update brings more bugs and half-fixed systems, and the community acts like free beta testers for Light No Fire, while still framing it all as “passion” and “commitment.”
It’s like Hello Games built a shoddy, unfinished building, declared it open anyway, and then decided to use it as a testing ground for their next building — and somehow it wins “Best Ongoing Building” every year.
So why do people keep buying into this narrative? Because it’s a comfortable story? Or is it somekind of parasocial relationship going on there?
NMS made 78 million in 2016, this can't be compared to a failed AAA game or indies where devs walk away from financial failure, another emotional argument?
According to the number of upvotes, it seems that their angst is a reflection of the game industry in general. Hello Games had indeed performed to expectations by not walking away, but does that warrant mythologising the redemption arc? Even when the state of the game is buggy?
Oh look an idiot!
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This might be unpopular, but it feels like the “redemption” story around No Man’s Sky has become more of a cultural comfort narrative than an honest look at what happened.
Let’s be real — most of those updates were just delivering delayed promises, not generosity. The game we were originally sold was missing a lot of advertised features, and Hello Games never actually apologized for lying. On top of that, every update brings more bugs and half-fixed systems, and the community acts like free beta testers for Light No Fire, while still framing it all as “passion” and “commitment.”
It’s like Hello Games built a shoddy, unfinished building, declared it open anyway, and then decided to use it as a testing ground for their next building — and somehow it wins “Best Ongoing Building” every year.
So why do people keep buying into this narrative? Because it’s a comfortable story? Or is it somekind of parasocial relationship going on there?
NMS made 78 million in 2016, this can't be compared to a failed AAA game or indies where devs walk away from financial failure, another emotional argument?
According to the number of upvotes, it seems that their angst is a reflection of the game industry in general. Hello Games had indeed performed to expectations by not walking away, but does that warrant mythologising the redemption arc? Even when the state of the game is buggy?
The last time I played it was like 2018-19, but even then it felt very much "mile wide, inch deep."
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This might be unpopular, but it feels like the “redemption” story around No Man’s Sky has become more of a cultural comfort narrative than an honest look at what happened.
Let’s be real — most of those updates were just delivering delayed promises, not generosity. The game we were originally sold was missing a lot of advertised features, and Hello Games never actually apologized for lying. On top of that, every update brings more bugs and half-fixed systems, and the community acts like free beta testers for Light No Fire, while still framing it all as “passion” and “commitment.”
It’s like Hello Games built a shoddy, unfinished building, declared it open anyway, and then decided to use it as a testing ground for their next building — and somehow it wins “Best Ongoing Building” every year.
So why do people keep buying into this narrative? Because it’s a comfortable story? Or is it somekind of parasocial relationship going on there?
NMS made 78 million in 2016, this can't be compared to a failed AAA game or indies where devs walk away from financial failure, another emotional argument?
According to the number of upvotes, it seems that their angst is a reflection of the game industry in general. Hello Games had indeed performed to expectations by not walking away, but does that warrant mythologising the redemption arc? Even when the state of the game is buggy?
Delivering on delayed promises is more than most game companies will ever do. Their actions in fixing and adding to the game is the apology. Every update does bring bugs but you say this like the game is in an unplayable state. It's perfectly fine 99% of the time and the 1% it's not is usually fixed within the week. As a day 1 owner who could barely run the game on launch it's come so fucking far. It literally took half an hour for the game to boot during those early days. There wasn't much to do on top of that. The systems were confusing and the game would crash almost every time you booted it. Everything has been fixed and refined for FREE!
Compare this to a company like Paradox and Colossal Order who killed Cities Skylines 2. That game released in the sorriest state I think I've ever seen in my life(including SimCity 5). The graphics are ass. The simulation didn't actually work. The traffic was worse than the original. Every system in that game was fucked beyond belief. On top of that they charged people on day 1 for additional content. Content that took almost 2 years to deliver. Now their original dev team got fired and a complete unknown with two games is supposed to take over the current king of a genre for a redemption arc. Cities Skylines 2 was murdered and set the modern city builder genre back almost 2 decades by continuing the reign of SimCity 4 as the best Modern City Buider ever.
When you compare that to what Hello Games has done with No Man's Sky you will see why we celebrate them. This isn't some exaggeration or accident. It's years of steady, consistent work that has turned a broken and potentially career ending product into the recommended space sim of this generation.
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You can support HG, but that doesn't mean that others have no right to think that it is not a smart thing to do. Spare me your ad hominem tactic, please.
I will try one more time to get the point across.
I'm not calling you a jerk because I'm insulting you ad hominem and think HG is good. I'm calling you a jerk because you were a jerk. And I agree with you that HG is not good.
Ad hominem would be if I disagreed with you.
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I will try one more time to get the point across.
I'm not calling you a jerk because I'm insulting you ad hominem and think HG is good. I'm calling you a jerk because you were a jerk. And I agree with you that HG is not good.
Ad hominem would be if I disagreed with you.
I mean, calling me a dick is already an Ad hominem. You are a jerk because you are a jerk is just circular reasoning, so there is just nothing but insults and ad hominem. xD
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Ain't that the absurdity? It is a silly analogy, and they are asymmetrical; if the same action applies, would it have a different reaction in the other place? Would Hello Games have the reputation as they have now?
"Why would you force other industry terms on the gaming industry?"
Judging from the reply here...well, you tell me...If i must abide by your original metafora i would say:
They promised grandiose skycraper and delivered shotty apartment complex and the tenant who had bought the apartments were understandably angry. Very few of the tenants stayed anyway, but by all means the building was a failure to the point it would be completelly understandable to have the whole building just bulldozed.
But where most companies would just disbanded and or disapeared with the money, they kept working on the building. Added new floors, made the yard nicer, lowered the prices of the apartments and the whole time tried their best to keep the remaining few people living there happy. And after few years (decates really if you think how much faster gaming industry develops than housing) the place started to be closer what the original brochure said.
Eventually new people start to get intrested about the apartments and the people who originally bought the apartments started to move back in without paying any additional fees. And while the windows were little smaller and the shower tiling were little different than originally promised, people seem to like living there. In a way the constant repairs and the new additions to the place, make it even better to some people.
The point that makes that building special is that nine times out of ten, in these situations the tenants are left with unhabitable home or even closed down building. And even more often the tenants need to pay additional fees to acces the fixed parts of the building.
Is this purely genorosity from the builder? Of course not. They also have bills to pay and in the end its their livelyhood and they surely have investers waiting a return for their money. But is it monumental showing of backbone from the builder to not walk away from the project, but keep working on it. Absolutelly.
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Remember that HG made £40 million in 2022 from good people like you, of course, they are going to keep at it.
Your comment makes no sense.
Yes, they made money from sales of the game. This does not explain why they continue to publish free updates for the last 10 years.
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This might be unpopular, but it feels like the “redemption” story around No Man’s Sky has become more of a cultural comfort narrative than an honest look at what happened.
Let’s be real — most of those updates were just delivering delayed promises, not generosity. The game we were originally sold was missing a lot of advertised features, and Hello Games never actually apologized for lying. On top of that, every update brings more bugs and half-fixed systems, and the community acts like free beta testers for Light No Fire, while still framing it all as “passion” and “commitment.”
It’s like Hello Games built a shoddy, unfinished building, declared it open anyway, and then decided to use it as a testing ground for their next building — and somehow it wins “Best Ongoing Building” every year.
So why do people keep buying into this narrative? Because it’s a comfortable story? Or is it somekind of parasocial relationship going on there?
NMS made 78 million in 2016, this can't be compared to a failed AAA game or indies where devs walk away from financial failure, another emotional argument?
According to the number of upvotes, it seems that their angst is a reflection of the game industry in general. Hello Games had indeed performed to expectations by not walking away, but does that warrant mythologising the redemption arc? Even when the state of the game is buggy?
My favorite game to compare NMS to is actually battlefront 2, one of if not the single worst launch in video game history, after realizing their mistakes putting in the time and effort to make the game actually run well then continuing to update the game for free even after no one is expecting more content. Yes the core mechanics of BF2 is not the best even though there isn't a single loot box or p2w mechanic left. Same with NMS the core game is still the same, it's not a brand new concept or ground breaking new mechanics to the same game they just keep working on it, fixing bugs and adding new things. I genuinely think with the state of companies like Bungie charging for Destiny expansion in 2026, a 70$ Pokemon game with 30$ dlc, and AAAA flops this is all we can ask for back your games, COMMIT to long term development and not charge for what seems like a joke of content backed by fomo
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I mean, calling me a dick is already an Ad hominem. You are a jerk because you are a jerk is just circular reasoning, so there is just nothing but insults and ad hominem. xD
That's literally not what an ad hominem is. I can't make you understand this. You need to read the wiki page.
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If i must abide by your original metafora i would say:
They promised grandiose skycraper and delivered shotty apartment complex and the tenant who had bought the apartments were understandably angry. Very few of the tenants stayed anyway, but by all means the building was a failure to the point it would be completelly understandable to have the whole building just bulldozed.
But where most companies would just disbanded and or disapeared with the money, they kept working on the building. Added new floors, made the yard nicer, lowered the prices of the apartments and the whole time tried their best to keep the remaining few people living there happy. And after few years (decates really if you think how much faster gaming industry develops than housing) the place started to be closer what the original brochure said.
Eventually new people start to get intrested about the apartments and the people who originally bought the apartments started to move back in without paying any additional fees. And while the windows were little smaller and the shower tiling were little different than originally promised, people seem to like living there. In a way the constant repairs and the new additions to the place, make it even better to some people.
The point that makes that building special is that nine times out of ten, in these situations the tenants are left with unhabitable home or even closed down building. And even more often the tenants need to pay additional fees to acces the fixed parts of the building.
Is this purely genorosity from the builder? Of course not. They also have bills to pay and in the end its their livelyhood and they surely have investers waiting a return for their money. But is it monumental showing of backbone from the builder to not walk away from the project, but keep working on it. Absolutelly.
Ah, yes, I knew about the divergence of this analogy. Let me add the drama.
Yet, it's not even following the original blueprint, where the property owner simply speculates what the next move of the builder will be. Some think this property is hot looking from the outside, some think there is a redemption arc going on, some think there are too many leaks in the wall, some thinks the water pressure and the heater are not working well enough, some think it's just ugly from the inside, some think there is the builders is not communicating at all, some homes vanished, some moved out and gone.
That's a nice sitcom.
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That's literally not what an ad hominem is. I can't make you understand this. You need to read the wiki page.
That's totally what ad hominem is, you need to read the wiki page.
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Delivering on delayed promises is more than most game companies will ever do. Their actions in fixing and adding to the game is the apology. Every update does bring bugs but you say this like the game is in an unplayable state. It's perfectly fine 99% of the time and the 1% it's not is usually fixed within the week. As a day 1 owner who could barely run the game on launch it's come so fucking far. It literally took half an hour for the game to boot during those early days. There wasn't much to do on top of that. The systems were confusing and the game would crash almost every time you booted it. Everything has been fixed and refined for FREE!
Compare this to a company like Paradox and Colossal Order who killed Cities Skylines 2. That game released in the sorriest state I think I've ever seen in my life(including SimCity 5). The graphics are ass. The simulation didn't actually work. The traffic was worse than the original. Every system in that game was fucked beyond belief. On top of that they charged people on day 1 for additional content. Content that took almost 2 years to deliver. Now their original dev team got fired and a complete unknown with two games is supposed to take over the current king of a genre for a redemption arc. Cities Skylines 2 was murdered and set the modern city builder genre back almost 2 decades by continuing the reign of SimCity 4 as the best Modern City Buider ever.
When you compare that to what Hello Games has done with No Man's Sky you will see why we celebrate them. This isn't some exaggeration or accident. It's years of steady, consistent work that has turned a broken and potentially career ending product into the recommended space sim of this generation.
Ah shit, yes, sorry about Cities Skyline 2, I liked Paradox when they were still small.
At the same time, Hello Games surely looks like a saint compared to AAA games. But coming from indie and open source games with long open betas and demos before they commit to commercial, the redemption arc looks...dramatic.
Those games don't cost and are purely driven by passion as well.
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My favorite game to compare NMS to is actually battlefront 2, one of if not the single worst launch in video game history, after realizing their mistakes putting in the time and effort to make the game actually run well then continuing to update the game for free even after no one is expecting more content. Yes the core mechanics of BF2 is not the best even though there isn't a single loot box or p2w mechanic left. Same with NMS the core game is still the same, it's not a brand new concept or ground breaking new mechanics to the same game they just keep working on it, fixing bugs and adding new things. I genuinely think with the state of companies like Bungie charging for Destiny expansion in 2026, a 70$ Pokemon game with 30$ dlc, and AAAA flops this is all we can ask for back your games, COMMIT to long term development and not charge for what seems like a joke of content backed by fomo
Yes, but Hello Game is an indie game company, not a triple-A developer. Indies have a long history of long development of the game after release/public beta. The post is about the state of the game and the fanbase irrationality. HG's direction would probably inspire a revolt in some communities.
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Ah, yes, I knew about the divergence of this analogy. Let me add the drama.
Yet, it's not even following the original blueprint, where the property owner simply speculates what the next move of the builder will be. Some think this property is hot looking from the outside, some think there is a redemption arc going on, some think there are too many leaks in the wall, some thinks the water pressure and the heater are not working well enough, some think it's just ugly from the inside, some think there is the builders is not communicating at all, some homes vanished, some moved out and gone.
That's a nice sitcom.
I feel like i got it now. You want to add drama. You are the neighbor yelling over the fence, the one who seems to have something against the houses, even if it literaly does not effect on their life at all.
This is why i did not want to respond to your analogy from the beginning. It does not lead to anywhere as everything is makebeliview.
Facts.
The game is overwhelmingly positive status on steam. Recently almost 90% of the people are satisfied to the product.
Its player base keeps getting bigger.
The game is soon 10 years old, but it keeps getting updates.
Hello Games have been working on the game in the situation where industry standard would have been to stop.
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I feel like i got it now. You want to add drama. You are the neighbor yelling over the fence, the one who seems to have something against the houses, even if it literaly does not effect on their life at all.
This is why i did not want to respond to your analogy from the beginning. It does not lead to anywhere as everything is makebeliview.
Facts.
The game is overwhelmingly positive status on steam. Recently almost 90% of the people are satisfied to the product.
Its player base keeps getting bigger.
The game is soon 10 years old, but it keeps getting updates.
Hello Games have been working on the game in the situation where industry standard would have been to stop.
Now you understand the reality, sometimes you just have to get the words out somehow. XD
And that’s ok, sneer all you want, i dont expect a change to anything, this is an extremely unpopular opinion: I still think the redemption arc is bullshit, HG has achieved the minimum professionally, and now HG being crowned as the beacon of the industry is a kneejerk reaction to the action of the industry: expensive DLC, abandoning games, scam early access...
While ignoring the true indies/open source games that work for nothing but pure passion.
Thanks for your time to respond.
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Now you understand the reality, sometimes you just have to get the words out somehow. XD
And that’s ok, sneer all you want, i dont expect a change to anything, this is an extremely unpopular opinion: I still think the redemption arc is bullshit, HG has achieved the minimum professionally, and now HG being crowned as the beacon of the industry is a kneejerk reaction to the action of the industry: expensive DLC, abandoning games, scam early access...
While ignoring the true indies/open source games that work for nothing but pure passion.
Thanks for your time to respond.
The sneering was only half intentional. And personaly i quite enjoy discussing things like this.
But i still strongly disagree with your view. Hello Games was small studio at the start, but they havent been ringing the indie bell for their game and in my opinion they havent stolen the limelight from indie devs. Games like Terraria and Stardew valley are still celebrated games and people are praising those games and the work devs have being doing with the updates.
Following your logic one could argue, that companies behind those games are not anywhere near the small indie teams people imagine them. And we should be angry for them too, because they take the spotlight from games like Dwarf Fortress and Project Zomboid, that have been passion projects for years before those earlier two even were concepts.
The main thing that makes No Man Sky different is that those succesfull indie games were good from the beginning, while NMS was horrible and borderline unsalvageable game, but the devs kept working on it and making it slowly better. A effort most companies wont do.
So in my opinion people should be happy and support Hello Games, because that shows to the other companies, that even if the first release of the game is bad, it is possible (and profitable) to keep making the game better.
Of course, if we lived in perfect world we could consider what HG is doing a bare minimum, but we live in a world where what they do is exceptional.
Also i strongly disagree about they doing minimun professionally. They have kept the now almost ten years old game playable, added vr, new console supports. If you want to see what minimal is take a look of Assasins Creed Unitys state in 2025.
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This might be unpopular, but it feels like the “redemption” story around No Man’s Sky has become more of a cultural comfort narrative than an honest look at what happened.
Let’s be real — most of those updates were just delivering delayed promises, not generosity. The game we were originally sold was missing a lot of advertised features, and Hello Games never actually apologized for lying. On top of that, every update brings more bugs and half-fixed systems, and the community acts like free beta testers for Light No Fire, while still framing it all as “passion” and “commitment.”
It’s like Hello Games built a shoddy, unfinished building, declared it open anyway, and then decided to use it as a testing ground for their next building — and somehow it wins “Best Ongoing Building” every year.
So why do people keep buying into this narrative? Because it’s a comfortable story? Or is it somekind of parasocial relationship going on there?
NMS made 78 million in 2016, this can't be compared to a failed AAA game or indies where devs walk away from financial failure, another emotional argument?
According to the number of upvotes, it seems that their angst is a reflection of the game industry in general. Hello Games had indeed performed to expectations by not walking away, but does that warrant mythologising the redemption arc? Even when the state of the game is buggy?
Of all the fucking things to be upset about across the entire world and this is your fight your gonna spend your limited resources on earth on? Starting shit online about a stupid topic to feel like you actually mean something today? You got some weird shit going on man and not the good kind IMO.
But first. Its not an arch like in a movie, its not a narrative. Its a complete story. The narrative to that story is subject to change but is still based around the actual events. Which played out redemptively at some point and is a part of the established history now.
Secondly. You are constantly asking for a logic to the emotion of it all over here and asking to have someone explain that to you like it's so easy. You are going to need to read some psychology if you want to validate your noticing/noting the parallels between nurturing and being a baby and vulnerability and all that and that making us susceptible to emotional attachment to free things given freely over a period of time if you want but stop asking here its not the time.
He felt bad about situation. You ever run a studio? Building? Never? Professional obligation mixed up with your personal human judgement? No? Fantastic then assume that its not all fun and promises get made for 1000 reasons. Nervousness. Overconfidence. Obligating yourself to do it later because you said you would. These are everyday practices in that area. He got his big boy pants on and went to the interviews and lied (read: manager promised). (Why he "promised" is subject to opinion and thus the "narrative" you suggested divides right there) 'Promising' like that, however, doesn't work well in that fan type of environment. And he felt bad about it. It actually really bothered him. We arent always who were trying to be. He fucked up. He let real people down by being impulsive. He stopped interviewing I think completely. And its likely mostly his fault that this all happened (unless the studio was talking to each other about those features and making unofficial promises internally which would help explain some of the false promises made)
That would have been the whole story if he/they had just walked. But it appears theyre just not that kind of people. Sean is, however, CLEARLY total shit at promising stuff
(and thus the twitter emojis to announce updates) But they could have wanted to do those features but probably also said don't tell the media that shit which happens all the time in studio productions. They're were likely things they didn't yet know they could do (independent studio and all) but wanted to do very badly and were literally working on. (Fuckin' Creatives you know? Amirightoramiright /being sarcastic here don't be too offended)So. The updates ARE the fucking apology bro
and a love letter to the whole embarrassing ordeal.Or at least they were for few years or however long it took them to add everything even VAGUELY promised that wasn't clearly "what are our intentions are for the game how is it supposed to feel" type talk. (That people hold him accountable for even now, like star wars nerds and George Lucas. Honestly that energy had to go somewhere
) Now its an entire, see how far we can push this game, sales are stable so why stop, corporate is just us anyways, Terraria-esqe love-of-the-game, the community has been good to us and they love us and that's how we love them back thing.But your social engagement consists mostly of this so I'm worried you don't really get emotions outside your own views and probably can't be trusted to change that big ol' galaxy brain style opinion of yours this but I'm sure trying here anyways, good practice if nothing else
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This might be unpopular, but it feels like the “redemption” story around No Man’s Sky has become more of a cultural comfort narrative than an honest look at what happened.
Let’s be real — most of those updates were just delivering delayed promises, not generosity. The game we were originally sold was missing a lot of advertised features, and Hello Games never actually apologized for lying. On top of that, every update brings more bugs and half-fixed systems, and the community acts like free beta testers for Light No Fire, while still framing it all as “passion” and “commitment.”
It’s like Hello Games built a shoddy, unfinished building, declared it open anyway, and then decided to use it as a testing ground for their next building — and somehow it wins “Best Ongoing Building” every year.
So why do people keep buying into this narrative? Because it’s a comfortable story? Or is it somekind of parasocial relationship going on there?
NMS made 78 million in 2016, this can't be compared to a failed AAA game or indies where devs walk away from financial failure, another emotional argument?
According to the number of upvotes, it seems that their angst is a reflection of the game industry in general. Hello Games had indeed performed to expectations by not walking away, but does that warrant mythologising the redemption arc? Even when the state of the game is buggy?
I think the company is shit for delivering a shit product. It is less shit for finally delivering some of what was promised but it's still a shit company
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Of all the fucking things to be upset about across the entire world and this is your fight your gonna spend your limited resources on earth on? Starting shit online about a stupid topic to feel like you actually mean something today? You got some weird shit going on man and not the good kind IMO.
But first. Its not an arch like in a movie, its not a narrative. Its a complete story. The narrative to that story is subject to change but is still based around the actual events. Which played out redemptively at some point and is a part of the established history now.
Secondly. You are constantly asking for a logic to the emotion of it all over here and asking to have someone explain that to you like it's so easy. You are going to need to read some psychology if you want to validate your noticing/noting the parallels between nurturing and being a baby and vulnerability and all that and that making us susceptible to emotional attachment to free things given freely over a period of time if you want but stop asking here its not the time.
He felt bad about situation. You ever run a studio? Building? Never? Professional obligation mixed up with your personal human judgement? No? Fantastic then assume that its not all fun and promises get made for 1000 reasons. Nervousness. Overconfidence. Obligating yourself to do it later because you said you would. These are everyday practices in that area. He got his big boy pants on and went to the interviews and lied (read: manager promised). (Why he "promised" is subject to opinion and thus the "narrative" you suggested divides right there) 'Promising' like that, however, doesn't work well in that fan type of environment. And he felt bad about it. It actually really bothered him. We arent always who were trying to be. He fucked up. He let real people down by being impulsive. He stopped interviewing I think completely. And its likely mostly his fault that this all happened (unless the studio was talking to each other about those features and making unofficial promises internally which would help explain some of the false promises made)
That would have been the whole story if he/they had just walked. But it appears theyre just not that kind of people. Sean is, however, CLEARLY total shit at promising stuff
(and thus the twitter emojis to announce updates) But they could have wanted to do those features but probably also said don't tell the media that shit which happens all the time in studio productions. They're were likely things they didn't yet know they could do (independent studio and all) but wanted to do very badly and were literally working on. (Fuckin' Creatives you know? Amirightoramiright /being sarcastic here don't be too offended)So. The updates ARE the fucking apology bro
and a love letter to the whole embarrassing ordeal.Or at least they were for few years or however long it took them to add everything even VAGUELY promised that wasn't clearly "what are our intentions are for the game how is it supposed to feel" type talk. (That people hold him accountable for even now, like star wars nerds and George Lucas. Honestly that energy had to go somewhere
) Now its an entire, see how far we can push this game, sales are stable so why stop, corporate is just us anyways, Terraria-esqe love-of-the-game, the community has been good to us and they love us and that's how we love them back thing.But your social engagement consists mostly of this so I'm worried you don't really get emotions outside your own views and probably can't be trusted to change that big ol' galaxy brain style opinion of yours this but I'm sure trying here anyways, good practice if nothing else
Sheesh, I think you're taking this a little too personally
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Sheesh, I think you're taking this a little too personally
A person put in the time, to create an entire post, about how this guy is romanticized and doesn't deserve it, for attention on the internet and I'M the one who is taking it personally huh?
I've seen shit like this posted and reposted for like 8 years now. Did my thing here inconvenience you for what, like 30 seconds? Sorry for giving a frankly good goddamn answer to his direct question addressed to me personally on this public forum thing
Youre not taking it personally enough, cause it is in fact meant personally