Verdict
No Man’s Sky is the definitive example of a comeback. What was once a hollow experience is now a dense RPG that encourages you to play your way without punishing you for it. With excellent multiplayer and waves of free content to dig into, No Man’s Sky is the only space RPG you need to play right now.
Not many games recover from a disastrous launch. Most games would falter after a shaky debut, but No Man's Sky escaped the black hole of forgotten titles. In the years since Hello Games' RPG landed in August 2016, similar titles such as Starfield and the long-running Star Citizen vie for intergalactic greatness. Yet, even triple-A veterans like Bethesda can't match what No Man's Sky delivers.
I'll admit something to you, though: I'm somewhat late to the No Man's Sky turnaround. My first encounter with the game came in the form of buying it on sale at Christmas in 2020. For around $15, I'm willing to take the chance on it. I'd heard about all the goodwill Hello Games continues to pour into it, so surely there's a good game inside it somewhere? At the time, the next-gen update for No Man's Sky became the focal point, but the Nintendo Switch version wouldn't follow until two years later.
But what exactly is No Man's Sky? Beyond the early waves of negative critical reception, there's actually a highly charming adventure through a procedurally generated cosmos to enjoy. Exploring vast galaxies as a nameless traveller, mysterious entities such as the Nada and Polo point toward a dying interstellar known as the Atlas. What starts as a stoic journey through the stars turns into a surprisingly reflective narrative that ponders our place in the universe, observing the mundanity of life, and breaking free from the shackles of routine. It's real existential stuff.
In the middle of it all, the thing I love the most about No Man's Sky's story is how it piecemeals the game's purposely vague lore. Rather than bog itself down in huge exposition dumps or lengthy cutscenes, NPCs flesh out the world by arming you with knowledge. It isn't just your usual word salad of endless dialogue trees. That's because your character doesn't understand the local dialect. It isn't just a way to learn about the universe, but also how each faction responds to your presence.
Most interactions can lead to learning new words of the game's four languages: Gek, Vy'keen, Korvax, and Atlas. Gek's are a race of trade-focused beings, the Vy'keen are known for their prowess as warriors, while the Korvax are a collective of machine-intelligence scientists. The Atlas's language precedes them all as an ancient tongue that is probably older than time itself. Separate from these, Traveller Glyphs serve as a code of sorts, highlighting portals that you can use to traverse to parts unknown.
Putting together more of each dialect is helpful for trading and acquiring better gear. Other than finding items and blueprints in the world, trading posts like the Space Station or The Anomaly serve as hubs to truly kit out your character. They're also places to acquire bigger investments, such as ships or Corvettes, which carry you and your friends around. The latter is a newer feature, arriving with the Voyagers update.
Grinding for Nanites and other currency can be a grind; there's no getting around that aspect. Or is there? Where other RPGs would force you to chip away at the expense of your enjoyment, Hello Games' choice to include a dense customization menu is genuinely brilliant. This menu lets me tweak every aspect of the game, from toggling infinite currency and easier enemy counters to feeding my base with a never-ending source of electricity. It's a granular set of options that caters to any kind of player, rather than punishing them.
Better yet, it works in the game's co-op modes. I can play No Man's Sky my way. It's a false sense of freedom; this is real control over how my playthrough progresses. It's one of many features to come with Hello Games' graft to carve the game into the promises it made at launch. And let me tell you, there are a lot of updates to get the most out of. If we're talking general patches, there are over 240 of them to sift through.
As you can expect with all of those patches, No Man's Sky runs well for the most part. I still come across hilarious glitches and bugs sometimes, but frame rate and fidelity are solid. On the Nintendo Switch, it runs at a stable 30fps and is an impressive port considering how grandiose the game is. The Nintendo Switch 2 port, a free upgrade for all players, is fantastic. It's just as good as playing on a Steam Deck or Asus ROG Ally, in my opinion.
For major updates, though, you can reap the benefits of 35 or so huge expansions - and there's more to come. It still astounds me that No Man's Sky is completely devoid of microtransactions. There isn't a single lick of purchasable currency, DLC packs, or cosmetics to buy with real cash. With the studio's next game, Light No Fire, in development, Hello Games is transparent about using No Man's Sky as a testing ground for it. It's an unexpectedly candid aspect of the game, but one that is ultimately serving it well.
Because of the sheer volume of content available now for new players, there's an exceptional amount of value in No Man's Sky. Having done extensive digs into the game's launch state, it wouldn't surprise me if you thought this is a different game entirely. In many ways, it is. Each mechanic is denser than ever, but there's still room to grow. I wish base-building approached its complexity more. Funcom's Dune Awakening, a game with the same refreshing feeling of freedom, currently holds the crown for customization in this regard.
When I'm not trying to make sense of the people and species around me, quests range from engaging with its base-building mechanics, delivering items across the galaxy, to destroying Sentinels. Those are nothing compared to what later updates bring, with Expeditions, settlements, and more offering a deeper experience. In some ways, No Man's Sky's gargantuan ambitions can seem overwhelming. Before the arrival of the modifier menu I mentioned earlier, picking up a save after some time away could be a headache. Thankfully, there's a whole other part of the game that takes that pain away.
The best thing is that you can do a lot of these quest types in No Man's Sky multiplayer, the real heart of the game for me. Although the Expedition lobbies can be full of other players, the base experience is all about teaming up with up to three friends and completing various objectives. It begins as a bare bones mode, with limited resources and challenges to overcome. With some perseverance, travelling from point A to B through different pockets of the universe is deeply rewarding.
Not just because of the gifts you can earn, but the fun it effortlessly produces between friends. Some of my favorite No Man's Sky memories are simply admiring the galaxy together, or seeking out a near-perfect world to call home. Beautiful compositions score all of it, each of them made from samples recorded by 65daysofstatic.
Just like the 18 quintillion planets you can find, every piece of music is built from scratch using a range of sounds by the band. From ambient pads of reverbated synth pads to tracks bridging shoegaze and post-rock together, the music in No Man's Sky never fails to hit. The pieces of score that are precomposed, like the excellent Monolith and Hypersleep, are always creeping into my Spotify rotation.
All these years later, I consider No Man's Sky to be the greatest comeback in gaming history. Maybe today it wouldn't have been so lucky, as even live-service games from Sony can't overcome legions of unsatisfied players. Hello Games' commitment to value its audience's needs is commendable. Between its casual-friendly gameplay loop and wealth of content, there's just no other sci-fi RPG doing it like No Man's Sky right now. I just hope Light No Fire doesn't repeat its mistakes.
For more reviews like this, keep up to date with our guide to new Switch games or dive into our list of games like Skyrim for a different kind of RPG experience.