Looking back: No Man’s Sky is the longest-running labor of love I can recall in over forty years of gaming. Since its release in August 2016, Hello Games has shoveled countless man-hours into it, producing more than two dozen iterations without asking for a dime over its retail price–no subscriptions, no microtransactions, and completely free DLC.
Granted, the game got off to a very rough start, partly thanks to Sony demanding the studio rush an unfinished product out the door and partly thanks to Sean Murray overhyping and misrepresenting it. However, Hello Games has turned it into a Cinderella story, redeeming itself for the dumpster-fire launch.
The developers have worked almost exclusively on No Man’s Sky for nearly eight years post-launch. In 2020, they released The Last Campfire, but HG continued putting out NMS content throughout that game’s development. In the four years between the two, HG pushed out 94 No Man’s Sky patches, with 12 being major content packages.
First four years of No Man’s Sky Updates
- Foundation – November 2016
- Pathfinder – March 2017
- Atlas Rises – August 2017
- Next – July 2018
- The Abyss – October 2018
- Visions – November 2018
- Beyond – August 2019
- Synthesis – November 2019
- Living Ship – February 2020
- Exo Mech – April 2020
- Crossplay – June 2020
- Desolation – July 2020
So when will it end? Hello Games can’t just keep pumping out free content forever – not without some kind of monetization. No Man’s Sky’s latest update may hold a clue.
On Thursday, HG pushed another huge content drop for NMS called Omega. I believe this might be No Man’s Sky’s last major update for a few reasons.
First, it’s all in the name. Omega means the end. As Merriam-Webster defines it: “The extreme or final part,” also, ” something or someone designated with the name omega or the Greek letter ω especially denoting the last in position, order, or class.” So it seems like a wink and a nod to it being the last iteration.
Mind you, Hello Games does not explicitly indicate anywhere in its patch notes that this is the end of NMS development. Definitely take my speculation with a grain of salt. However, I’m not just making my assumption based solely on the update’s name.
Hello Games also announced it’s making No Man’s Sky free-to-play over the next few days. Starting yesterday, anyone can play NMS. The free trial lasts until 6 pm GMT on Monday, February 19. If you have never played it, it definitely worth a go at no cost.
By itself, this does not indicate that Hello Games is ending NMS development either. However, one last push to get new players does make sense when you are about to close the books on a project, especially in light of my final vital point. The most important reason I think HG is wrapping it up is that it is preparing to go full gear into Light No Fire development.
In December, Sean Murray announced Light No Fire at the 2023 Game Awards Show. The title looks like No Man’s Sky set in a fantasy realm. In fact, judging by the trailer, it obviously uses the NMS engine. Therefore, much of the hard work is already done, although, Murray said it’s an even more ambitious project. Considering the shear volume of content in its epic space opera, that’s a very high bar.
The game still has no release date, and there are probably hours of writing left to do. It has some unique character models, but there are likely many more the team needs to create. So we’re probably talking about a significant amount of development left. Even so, considering all the free work the studio has done over the last seven-and-a-half years, it is likely looking to get Light No Fire out as soon as possible.
Will it abandon No Man’s Sky entirely in the meantime? Probably not. It still has seasonal expeditions. The latest is the eponymous Omega Expedition. There are also bug and QoL patches that will continue rolling out as needed. In fact, shortly after launching Omega, developers had to rush out the Omega 4.51 patch to fix stability on the Xbox.
The Omega update has a lot of exciting content, including some great rewards for completing the expedition, shared expedition loot, pirating pirate dreadnoughts, and more. If it is NMS’s last update, it’s going out with a bang, rather than a whimper. Check out all the details in the No Man’s Sky Patch Notes.