Confirmed at E3 2014 to be making its console debut on PlayStation 4, Hello Games’ Sean Murray told Eurogamer that, for No Man’s Sky, “the wording is we’re doing a console debut on PS4. The thing that that leaves open is a PC version.”
Since the team at Hello Games is so small (“there’s 10 in Hello Games in total”), the PC version may arrive at a later date, as Murray said, “If I’m honest, we’re taking on quite a lot at the moment. We’re definitely coming to PS4. I would like to come to PC. Whether that arrives the same day – we’re a small team!”
Speaking about No Man’s Sky itself, Murray revealed just how enormous the universe will be:
We do start everyone on a different place on the outside edge of the galaxy. It is the same for everyone, but they are actually not just hundreds of miles apart, they could be billions of miles apart. So the chances of you bumping into someone are really, really small – but we do want you to have that sense of playing with other people.
He later added that “the size and scale of the universe we’re making is so vast, you’re only ever going to touch a tiny piece of that. The thing with something being infinite is no matter how much of it you explore, divided by infinity it still approaches zero.”
While it’s mostly a solo experience, there will be multiplayer, but Murray says they want it to feel like Journey:
We haven’t really talked about multiplayer, but I want kind of a Journey-esque feel to it. You get a sense that you’re playing with other people, and you can see the actions of other people, plus you’ll share things that are significant – if you take out a space station, we’ll share that, and that’ll be shared across the entire universe – but if you shoot down a bird, that won’t be. In terms of interactions, it’s really infrequent. But when it happens we want people to get a feel that we’re playing with other people. We’re doing that in loads of different ways – for instance, when you fly to the centre of the galaxy, when you get there is something you can do, and that causes an event and that is seen by everyone.
The main thing that everyone is sharing, and the main sense that you’re playing with other people, is that this galaxy, when you bring it up for the first time, it’s completely blank. You can see all the planets, but the map will just say a number. And when you explore, you see the caves, or fly down to a planet for the first time, I can choose to upload that and share with everyone. That’s the same with creatures, or different types of ship, or where a space station is or whether something’s toxic, what resources are there and whether there’s a crashed ship.
Even after watching videos, if you’re still under the impression No Man’s Sky will be a walk in the park, Murray warned otherwise:
The idea, with the gameplay that we showed, is that the planets are dangerous. It hurts me that some people think we’re making this ambient indie game that you walk around and look at trees and scan them, like some universal Pokemon Snap. What we’re making has core action. I hope we got that across. When you’re on a planet, there are creatures that are dangerous. You see the drones and they’re just a sneak peak of the mechanical, and you can interact with – they can be dangerous and they can be friendly. You are really interacting in this universe.
Murray finished up by revealing how No Man’s Sky is made for the Let’s Play generation: “This is a game made for people who make YouTube videos of games, the Let’s Play generation. People who want to take screenshots and build a community wiki and track what out’s there. We believe that, being completely open, we won’t tell you how the game works. We want people to discover that themselves, and still be discovering things after a year of play.”
