5 things No Man’s Sky should’ve done to succeed

Like most, I am hugely disappointed by No Man’s Sky. Let’s get that out there. What should’ve been the game that kept me busy for the foreseeable future, has instead been the game that I sold a month after buying. A game that I sold for £24 in a sheer panic to cut my losses.

Plenty of other way more reputable sources have reported the failings of NMS, so let’s put a positive spin on it: Here’s my take on what NMS should’ve done to succeed….you never know HelloGames might read this when they’re considering NMS2, right?

1. Don’t overpromise

This is the big one, isn’t it? There’s a whole bunch of stuff on Reddit detailing exactly what No Man’s Sky promised to deliver: from ringed planets to crashed freighters, multiplayer and customisable ships to space battles, it seemed like every little sci-fi fans’ dream was going to be realised in this game. Instead, we got a near-infinite number of samey planets, rubbish animals, braindead NPCs, and a yawn-inducing resource gathering game mechanic.

That was your lot.

So, yeah, step 1 — don’t overpromise and under-deliver. That E3 demo was amazing, but it set such an unrealistic expectation.

I remember watching the E3 conference at my girlfriend’s house and shouting her over to my tincy little iPhone 4S to show her this amazing game that was going to be the future of everything. “I’ll never need another game again”, I probably said. How naive of me!

2. Make the universe actually fun to explore

For the record, a universe that allegedly takes 5 billion years to fully explore is too big. Now, I like value for money, but that’s a bit excessive isn’t it? I find it hard enough to squeeze in a bit of Battlefield, Destiny or Uncharted every now and then, so the premise of a game where I will never scratch the surface kind of alienates me and makes me rethink where I’m spending my time.

There’s a fine line between having a huge open-world and having one that can never be completed: people’s time is precious and there’s a perfectly good reason why we have carefully crafted narrative-driven experiences like The Witcher 3, alongside online multiplayer behemoths like Call of Duty. Every gameplay element is considered and it isn’t left down to an algorithm to generate a entire universe, because clearly that doesn’t work.

Of the four hours or so that I played, I visited a handful of planets each one feeling remarkably similar each time. Yes, the colour palette had changed a little and yes some of the planets may have been toxic or had bigger caves than the last one, but they were nominal tweaks. I appreciate that 4 hours of game time isn’t much to give a balanced verdict, but that’s all I needed/wanted to dedicate to this game and, if anything, that’s a huge testament to how I felt about NMS.

Bigger isn’t always better.

3. Do a friggin’ beta!

Imagine how many issues would’ve been picked up and rectified before actual release? They could’ve actually delayed it and said “look guys, we’re fixing X, Y and Z because you told us it was a bit pants and boring in places”. Instead, they charged us £40 to £50 to essentially be their guinea pigs. The day-one patch indicates how unfinished the game actually was.

4. Release as a Steam Early Access game or cheap indie title (people will be way more forgiving)

NMS launched as a full AAA title under a huge Sony-led marketing budget. This meant a 13-person team had to compete with the likes of other AAA titles. To put that in context, DICE have 640 employees and Bungie have around 750. I dread to think of the strain the dev team were under to complete this game, and it showed with all those missing features.

Now, imagine if NMS had dripped onto the Steam Early Access store or came as a small indie £10 game on the PS Store. We’d have all bought it and praised how ambitious it was, without feeling the need to justify the £40+ spend. They could’ve even charged a little more when they added new features in or moved to a subscription model or something like that.

From that point, HelloGames could’ve said “this is just the beginning and we plan to add blah blah blah” — queue whooping and hollering from all gamers. Instead, they’ve totally tarnished their reputation. Minecraft is a brilliant example of this. Minecraft charged such a low entry price point, but the popularity of the game is undeniable and as such has sold over 100 million copies.

5. Be honest and communicate

Tell people that you’re not going to meet those targets, or that gameplay element just yet, but don’t continue to sell your game on that premise.

Say that you were a bit over-ambitious. Say exactly what you will deliver and start planning a new game content delivery strategy. If we, as customers, know that we’re getting space battles in Q1 of 2017 — fine, but don’t tell us it’s going to be there and then don’t do it.

Update: Well, would you look at that, Shawn Layden has defended the game and has said that NMS will “reveal itself to be all that it can be”. I’m all for HelloGames turning this ship around and if/when that happens, I’ll probably jump straight back in.

Oh and by the way, with that £24 I bought the Rise of Iron DLC and had a lot more fun. Yeah, I know we’re called “DLC Not Included”, but I feel like Destiny are providing brilliant game expansions that genuinely add to the experience.

Update 2: I wrote this before the foundation update was even a thing. I like the direction the game is going and hopefully in a year, I’ll get to write about how phenomenal the game has become after such a disappointing start…watch this space