In complete and total fairness to Hello Games, the launch of their hugely ambitious space epic, No Man’s Sky, was a bit of a mess. The anticipation and excitement had reached Grail-like levels in the months leading up to August 2016, to the point that no game conceived on Earth could possibly live up to the hype. We’d all seen the lovingly-termed “bullshots” of majestic beasts striding across beautiful, verdant landscapes; we’d marvelled at visions of a plethora of wild and wonderful creatures drinking from a gleaming watering hole as our intrepid Traveller stepped from his craft to walk among the unknown, and bask in the glory of limitless possibility.

Part gathering game, part walking-simulator, part space adventure, No Man’s Sky was billed as a third person experience to rival all others, a sci-fi game of such phenomenal ambition that it would steal hundreds of hours from every willing player who engaged with it. However, even before the official launch, broken street dates and leaked copies allowed YouTubers and games critics to jump in early and paint a very different, much less mind-blowing picture. The common assumption, we learned to our deepening horror, was that we had been sold a dud. We’re facetiously paraphrasing here, of course, but the truth is people felt let down and disappointed by a game that seemed twelve months and a few million dollars shy of what we’d been shown. No, what we’d been promised.

There’s a Star-man waiting in the sky © Hello Games

People lost sight of the fact that despite what was seen as missing, No Man’s Sky was still a staggering achievement. Here was a title with a truly infinite gamescape; a procedurally generated universe filled with empty, barren shells ready to be populated and terraformed the moment a player discovered them. The fact that you could name your world and all the plants and wildlife you discovered on it, and allow other players to find it and visit it remains an incredible mechanic. The problem was it didn’t look great. The problem was it wasn’t feature-rich. The problem was, it had an awful lot of problems.

The trouble with such massive levels of pre-release hype was that a community had formed in expectation of No Man’s Sky. People already had plans for what they would name their first star system, clans who had formed in the lobbies and battlefields of other games had already agreed to meet in a multiplayer mode that, to date, still hasn’t fully materialised. Gamers were ready for the second coming, and when it didn’t happen… boy, were those communities vocal about it.

Alarm bells rang when review copies went out so close to launch, and the embargo for critical assessments was the day of release. Nine times out of ten, that’s taken as a sign of low confidence on the part of a developer or publisher. People decried Hello Games and No Man’s Sky, with studio head Sean Murray receiving a steady stream of ire from disgruntled gamers. Radio silence probably wasn’t the best strategy to employ, but in response, the studio went dark, refraining from responding to Tweets and forum posts for several months. During the following October, No Man’s Sky had the lowest user rating on Steam, pulled from the aggregated scores of 70,000 upset and angry players.

These guys are always crashing the party © Hello Games

The multitudinous worlds felt barren, looked unappealing and lacked any sense of real danger or excitement. The thrill of exploration, of taking your heart in your hands and embarking upon a perilous expedition into the unknown was largely absent. Added to this, the UI was fiddly and your carrying capacity stingy. It was frustrating. Beyond the initial sense of wonder when you finally advanced enough to leave your starting world, No Man’s Sky seemed a little hollow.

Perhaps Hello Games simply decided that actions are louder than words, because they kept quiet until November when the first major content update was ready to roll out. Called The Foundation Update , this was the first step towards Hello realising their initial goal for No Man’s Sky. Players could now nominate a planet as a homeworld, and construct a base on it using a refreshingly simple building menu. Space combat – a hotly anticipated but much-maligned feature – was overhauled, becoming more straightforward and much more satisfying.

It felt like the beginning of... something. People didn’t know what, and many who had traded in their copies or, as with some cases, received a refund on their purchase, didn’t bother to return. But those who stayed, the cult following that seemed small but who adamantly refused to accept that Hello Games was done, held on. As with many other games recently (Destiny, The Division, Rainbow Six: Siege), the developers refused to give up and roll over. Sean Murray and the team weathered the criticism, as harsh as it sometimes became, to keep on plugging.

A Galaxy at war? © Hello Games

While build mechanics and improved combat struggled to entice people back, the addition of new game modes began to turn heads. Similarly to Minecraft, a Creative Mode removed any and all danger from the world and gave the player infinite resources with which to build and innovate; conversely, Survival Mode increased the difficulty and danger, adding perma-death to engender a more “roguelike” experience. It was a promising start, even if it wasn’t enough to quiet the naysayers.

We were still a few light years away from the galactic community Hello Games had once teased us with, but in March 2017, the Pathfinder Update began to sow the seeds of a greater meta-game. Now bases could be named and shared, and a newly introduced vehicle, the Exocraft (kind of like a modifiable version of Mass Effect’s all-terrain Mako) made planet traversal simpler. The core community hung on, as slowly more players began to return, curious as to why people were still playing and hopeful that things had changed.

By the time the first year had passed, the Atlas Rises completed the first trio of free-to-download title updates, adding an alleged 30 hours of story content, new missions and a heap of new craft and multi-tool options. But it was the Joint Exploration mode that turned people’s heads. While still a far cry from playing side-by-side like, say The Division or Dying Light, the new multiplayer mode lets up to 16 players move and explore together – and even chat via headsets when close enough. Represented as little balls of luminescence, the appearance of other players adds a serene, otherworldly quality to No Man’s Sky that seems remarkably fitting.

Explore new worlds on PC with some incredible mods © Nexus Mods

But these updates are just that: additions to the game by developers who want to bring their loyal fans what was promised. A real gaming community, as everyone knows, can only be formed by the gamers. The Galactic Hub Project is one of the best examples not only of player synergy, but of a core player base supporting and believing in their favourite game enough to take it upon themselves to improve it. It was created by a group of intrepid explorers who set out to map an entire system, something which may very well be almost heart-warmingly impossible.

One region, the Rentocniijic Expanse, has already been mapped, and contains 60 systems and almost 200 worlds. For the contributors to the Galactic Hub Project, this is just the beginning, as their ultimate challenge and goal is to somehow map the entire Euclidean galaxy. With web space dedicated to maps, catalogues, fan fiction, tips, journals and discussions, the project has begun to turn No Man's Sky into the explorer's paradise it was intended to be. It's uplifting, in many ways, to see a group of gamers, paying consumers, believe so passionately in the quality and potential of a product that they're willing to go so far to manifest what they have always argued was there, somewhere. If other gaming communities were less vocal and this proactive, more games might be saved from drifting into the void, too.

It's not just the Galactic Hub that's changing the starscape of NMS, either. The decision to allow modding has led to vast optional improvements in the PC version, opening up limitless potential for talented modders to add to and tweak the existing game. Mods to add new and more plentiful fauna are popular, as are mods that alter the terrain, add new architecture and ships, or even just increase your Traveller's running speed or inventory space. You need only visit the NMS page of Nexus Mods to see that the modding community has begun to embrace No Man's Sky for the sandbox it could be, and along with the Galactic Hub Project are introducing new reasons to revisit the game weekly.

There has to be something worth finding in there... © Nexus Mods

If nothing else, No Man's Sky has been a powerful cautionary tale, and one that will remind both indie and AAA developers alike of the importance of clear communication, transparent marketing, and outright honesty for years to come. But more than that, it's also an unlikely success story, heading through its second year of life with a much more assured and confident pace, as Hello Games realise that they're not alone out there in the darkness of space.