We’re home

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E3 2014 was the most extraordinary week of our lives. It was so far beyond our imaginings that it’s hard to express how we feel, but we wanted to say thank you to, like, everyone for the reaction No Man’s Sky enjoyed. We’re made up.

So we’ve all made it back to our studio, including the members of the team who tried to fly home and got stuck in Texas for two days as a result of cancelled flights, and now it’s time to get back to work. We can’t wait.

First, though, we wanted to share some articles that have been published about the game. We got to the front page of the BBC News website, and we trended on Twitter. But most of all, seeing No Man’s Sky through other people’s eyes has been amazing, and seeing their reactions as they saw the game running never got old. Thanks so much to everyone who came to see it.

One of the key concepts driving No Man’s Sky is the idea that discovery should be a rare thing — a thrill to be treasured.

→ Digital Trends

Like the Big Bang Theory, the team makes the whole impossibly massive universe in one procedurally generated instant, and it’s locked in for the life of the game. If you discover a cool planet, fly ten thousand light years away, and come back, every rock and tree will be in its right place.

→ Game Informer

Murray and his team don’t seem afraid or overwhelmed. Hello Games doesn’t see No Man’s Sky as impossibly ambitious as it appears. Artist Grant Duncan summarizes it pretty succinctly, and says with confidence, “We made a game with the most ambition that a small team could build.”

→ IGN

For the first time in the new console cycle, there appears to be a critical mass of exciting new titles on the horizon. But developer Hello Games’ upcoming No Man’s Sky may be the most promising—and gorgeous to watch in action.

→ Time

It was one thing seeing the video, but seeing it play out in front of us live just blew us away.

→ Destructoid

The game that got me and a lot of other people the most hyped this E3 is getting built by less than a dozen people. And, to my mind, No Man’s Sky has totally screwed with the idea of what it means to be a Big Game.

→ Kotaku

If No Man’s Sky works, it could be extraordinary. “I personally can’t wait for people to start discovering the universe,” says Murray. “Not for them. For us. People will post pictures of creatures, and we won’t have seen them before. Even though we sort of created the blueprint.”

→ Entertainment Weekly

The Hello Games team doesn’t have a stand at E3. No flashing lights, no pounding music, no booth babes. But boy, has it stolen the show. Its game, No Man’s Sky – an “open world” science -fiction game title – has arguably generated more buzz than any other title on show here in Los Angeles.

→ BBC News

Like the universe itself, I have trouble wrapping my head around just how vast a single in-game planet is, let alone the countless ones that surround it.

→ Games Radar

The immensity of scale–and the complete lack of loading screens through the entire presentation–was stunning to say the least.

→ Gamespot

“We don’t really get excited about the tech, and I didn’t even really want to show it,” [Murray] said. “I don’t want people to be excited about this tech — I want them to be excited about the emotion they will get from this Han Solo simulator experience where they get to live out their fantasy.”

→ Venturebeat

And finally, Shuhei Yoshida (zip to 0:50 if it doesn’t automatically take you there).

Yooooooo! to you too, Shuhei – and to everyone.