We’ve all heard the No Man’s Sky story by now: controversial launch followed by, as commenters often put it, the greatest redemption arc in the history of gaming. Somewhat remarkably, developer Hello Games’ exploratory space sim has now received almost forty major updates since its launch in 2016, all helping No Man’s Sky turn its initial “Overwhelmingly Negative” rating into “Very Positive” on Steam. But earlier this week, shortly after the arrival of its Voyagers update, No Man’s Sky hit another incredible milestone, reaching its highest Steam player count since its launch nine years ago.
Following a peak of 212K Steam players on its initial release (as per SteamDB), No Man’s Sky’s numbers gradually sunk to a low of around 1K by March 2018. But just a few months later, buoyed on by its massive Next update, the game saw its highest Steam player count since 2016, peaking at 97,723. Subsequent releases have continued to increase interest in the procedural space sim, but none have been as enthusiastically received as last week’s Voyagers update. Player numbers climbed quickly after its arrival, until Monday when, with much of the US off work for Labour Day, they finally reached their highest point since August 2016, with 98,285 Steam players exploring the universe concurrently. It was an impressive moment – especially for a game that’s ten next year.
Hello Games boss Sean Murray celebrated the occasion on social media with his customary exploding head emoji, but has now discussed No Man’s Sky’s recent success in more detail with Eurogamer. “Most of the time you are working on a game or an update, and you have no idea how it’ll be received,” Murray explained. “Often during development you lose perspective, and you can’t see the wood for the trees. With Voyagers though, even from the earliest days it was obvious there was something really special about just flying around in a ship you built with your friends. It’s just something that we’ve all seen glimpses of in other games, but there’s a certain magic about exploring the universe in your own USS Enterprise or Millennium Falcon.”