Despite what you may have seen tweeted or written, it doesn't appear that Hello Games founder Sean Murray (or anyone else at the developer) actually admitted that No Man's Sky was a mistake this morning.

To be sure, the Hello Games Twitter account did send the tweet pictured above, saying directly that "No Man's Sky was a mistake" just before 9am Eastern time this morning. The tweet was deleted about 10 minutes after going up, and the Hello Games account was set to "protected" at about the same time.

Many initially assumed the tweet was the result of a hack, especially given the odd posting method via LinkedIn, a platform that has had its own share of security problems . But things started to get confusing when various news outlets reported that someone using an e-mail account associated with Murray attributed the tweet to "a disgruntled employee" and said Hello Games was "currently trying to sort out the issue."

Meanwhile, Polygon reported that someone using Murray's account admitted to posting the tweet himself. "The tweet is from me, but somebody from the team took it down," an e-mail to Polygon from Murray’s account reads. "We have not been coping well."

Confusion reigned until later in the morning, when a post on Sean Murray's own Twitter account suggested that their server had been hacked. Another tweet noted pithily that "If anything was a mistake, it was using Linked In without 2FA." And a note on the Hello Games' (now unprotected) Twitter account seems to confirm that "100% not hacked anymore... obviously those mails and that tweet were fake. Back to work."

Of course, those tweets could still be coming from a potential hacker, perhaps as part of a long ruse to convince people that the threat is over. That's a bit much to assume, though, especially as Kotaku reports that "two sources close to the development of the game" confirmed that the initial tweet was the result of a hack. Kotaku also shared a lengthy e-mail from a different Sean Murray account that appears to be a fake mea culpa for the response his game has received.

This morning's digital drama is the first sign of online life we've seen from Hello Games and Murray in quite a while. After No Man's Sky launched in August , following years of massive (and somewhat unmet) hype , Murray and his team have denied every request for comment or interviews from the press.

Before today, Murray hadn't posted on Twitter since an August 18 note about providing customer support, and the Hello Games account hadn't posted since August when it alerted players to a gameplay patch. If this hack was an effort to get the Hello Games team to lift their heads from their continuing work on the game and say something—anything—publicly... well, mission accomplished, I guess.