All month long, we've been diving deep into Hello Games' incredibly-ambitious No Man's Sky . We've shown off extended chunks of gameplay, picked apart the game's science-fiction inspirations, and how NMS' many systems work together.

Release Date

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Xbox One/VR

Space Phenomena

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Planetary Transitions

Sea Depths

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Cross-Platform Play

Weather

Avatars

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After Release

To cap off this month's IGN First, we plumbed your comments below and gathered a ton of questions for Sean Murray, Hello's founder and programmer on No Man's Sky Hi KeyLimePies! It’s really nice that you are excited about the game, and care about the release date. That actually means a lot, it’s genuinely fuel that makes me want to keep coding tonight once I finish these answers!I guess there’s two things, when the release date is, but also when we announce that date. We can’t announce the date right now, because of things that are not entirely in our control, but honestly for good reasons. It’ll be announced as soon as we can.What really matters though, the big thing for us, is that date when you actually get to play the game yourself. I know you aren’t alone in wanting that to arrive as quickly as possible. If people could see how hard this team is working, how intently, passionately and crazily… man if people could see that, I’m pretty sure they’d tell us to ease off, to take a break.The reality is we wouldn’t ease off though, because nobody wants to get No Man’s Sky out there in the world more than we do. You talk to anyone here, and they’ll whisper about their post-launch “thing”. The sacrifices that’ll end, or that one thing we so desperately want to do, but is on hold until after the game is shipped. We’ve pretty much all had recurring dreams and nightmares about that moment of uploading the final build.I guess it’s easy to forget we’re just a small self funded indie studio. I remember even on Joe Danger, we ran out of time, energy and even money, maxing out credit cards, but we just kept going. That’s where we are now. And this is such an ambitious game, such a small team, and under so much pressure. You can’t go to sleep at night because it’s not going to be as good as you promised yourself, or as good as you can now see it could be.We’re a small group and we are very focused on delivering a great experience on PS4. Like, so focused it hurts... I want the game to shine, to do something new, and I want it to push the technology. I guess I’m not sure how much I can say about any of this, but I do think VR is extremely cool.We have a variety of different types of star, some of which are super rare, and you'll start to realise they'll tend to offer certain opportunities. In the videos already out there, as I zoom through the Galactic Map you get glimpses of different types, sizes and colours of stars, and more interestingly probably, different formations.As to other phenomena, well we don't want to say too much about what to expect, because No Man's Sky is about exploration and finding things for yourself, but the rule we've set ourselves is that it's a game first, not a simulation. Space has to be fun, and everything you find in it should offer interesting ways of playing. So for instance, a black hole could be a really cool gameplay element, but maybe a supernova isn’t so much…Personally I always tend to want to go for a more realistic depiction of everything, but Grant, our art director, always pushes for a more aesthetically interesting game. He says space should always looks beautiful. We argue, but he’s totally right. Every sci-fi book cover, artist, or film we look at for inspiration proves him right, with gorgeous space vistas.This is a game about exploration though. Whilst we’ve focused on showing our more vibrant systems in the past, and they are more interesting to discover, if you want to see the blackness of space I think if you are willing to explore then you’ll find it…Some seas can be very deep, yes, and they can get dark. Maybe you'll find certain creatures down there, and other things besides - you'll have a light on your suit that'll help you see. But these places are likely to be dangerous. One of my favourite things, that never gets old for me, is that feeling when I find some underwater caves. There I am supposed to be testing the game, and suddenly I’m distracted 100 meters deep in a cave discovering new creatures and running out of air.There’s really two questions, will the universe be identical, and will the network functions be shared? Unfortunately this is one of those things that I can’t really talk about just yet, but it’s actually a really unique problem for a game (that different platforms could have entirely different universes… would that be good or bad? What would people prefer?).There are things like rain, dust storms, snow, blizzards, storms and a bunch of other things possible. There are also more alien weather types, effectively like radioactive and toxic hazards, and atmospheres made from different compositions to ours. This isn’t a simulation or just a tech demo though, we’re not trying to recreate every possible natural disaster!So you don't get to see yourself in the game, which was a very specific decision we made early on. We wanted it so that you only see the world through your own eyes. No Man's Sky isn't an MMO. Who or what you are is down to your own interpretation, rather than us giving you set guidelines on it in the way a character creator would. That's super important to us.Having said that, if this doesn’t sound too weird… we know who you are! Or at least we have a lore that explains why you are in this universe. The story you tell in this world, and your journey, is down to you though. Too many games tell me ways to play, or force me to play as characters I don’t even like. We want the player to be able to think for themselves and use their imagination.Having said that, you can customise yourself hugely in other ways. Your ship, your weapon and suit will feel personal to you. If you have an asymmetrical, golden, scientific ship, then it’s because you went out and found that ship. You filled it with all its technology, and you would share it with pride. I could look at it and know what kind of player you are.You are opening up my personal Pandora ’s Box of pain here! There isn't room on the internet for a list of all the things I wish we could do. It's sort of OK because today when you release a game it doesn't mean you're necessarily finished. We want to release something finished, something complete, but I really hope that No Man’s Sky is successful enough to allow us to add even just some of the extra things we always talk about in the studio, or the things the community will come up with hopefully.