by theygamesTuesday, August 9, 2016. After months of hype, Hello Games’ hugely ambitious space adventure No Man’s Sky is finally released. And it’s a letdown. It’s not what anyone hoped it would be. In the past, this would be the entirety of the story. But in the modern gaming world, the end of development is just the beginning. Between updates, overhauls, new versions, patches, and a gradual expansion of the original vision, in eight years, No Man’s Sky has finally become the game of which its creators and its players dreamed. Its success is reflected in various metrics, but now, NMS can lay claim to that most coveted of PC gaming status symbols: ‘very positive’ Steam reviews.
The latest No Man’s Sky update adds cross saves and a tie-in with fellow sci-fi epic Mass Effect. It’s a testament to Hello Games’ commitment to the space game – if the first edition was less than the infinite intergalatic odyssey that players expected, after just less than a decade, No Man’s Sky finally feels like the adventure it was meant to be. And now, it can wear its success on its sleeve.
As of today, Wednesday November 27, more than eight years since No Man’s Sky first released, it finally has a ‘very positive’ Steam rating based on lifetime reviews. More than 245,000 players have left their comments since 2016, and now, at last, just over 80% of them are positive on aggregate. That lifts No Man’s Sky from the still-admirable ‘mostly positive’ bracket into the considerably more glamorous world of the VPs, the very positives – games like Elden Ring, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Civilization 6.
Of course, there is still one more mountain to climb: if 95% of No Man’s Sky reviews are favorable, it will reach the thermospheric heights of the ‘overwhelmingly positive,’ the most exclusive of the exclusive, Steam’s equivalent of the Forbes 500 list. Portal 2. Stardew Valley. Balatro. It’s a small club, but perhaps, after all this effort and self-improvement, one where No Man’s Sky belongs.
Until then, check out some of the other best open-world games, or maybe the greatest RPGs ever made for PC.
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