Eight years after its disastrous launch, No Man’s Sky reviews on Steam are “very positive”

The action-RPG Cyberpunk 2077 from CD Projekt Red took two and a half years to achieve “very positive” reviews on Steam after an unsuccessful launch, while the space adventure No Man’s Sky from Hello Games took eight long years.

Image source: Steam

Let’s remember that No Man’s Sky debuted in August 2016 on PC and PS4. The release version was a disappointment on a universal scale for fans – at the end of the day, the game turned out to be infinitely far from what the developers promised.

No Man’s Sky launched on Steam with “extremely negative” reviews (less than 20% positive), but Hello Games did not abandon the project and has been releasing regular and sometimes very large updates for the last eight years.

In 2018, No Man’s Sky reached “mixed” reviews (more than 40%), in 2021 it reached “mostly positive” (more than 70%), and for almost the entire last year it was on the verge of “very positive” (more than 80 %) from 79%.

A road of eight years and almost a quarter of a million reviews

On the evening of November 27, 2024, the positive review counter for No Man’s Sky still exceeded 80%. Eight years after its release, the game has received “very positive” reviews from service users.

«I honestly didn’t think we’d ever reach [this threshold], and it’s thanks to all of you. Thank you, thank you, thank you,” said Hello Games CEO Sean Murray.

According to Murray, the achievement means more to the team than ever – Hello Games released four major updates for No Man’s Sky in 2024. The developer also called for attention to the studio’s next project, Light No Fire.