No Man's Sky lands on the Nintendo Switch this summer

[Cal Jeffrey]

In context: Hello Games never stopped believing in its vision for No Man's Sky and never stopped working to make it a reality. It's hard to say when exactly NMS became everything Sean Murray had promised, but here we are, almost six years later, and the game is more than anyone ever thought it would be.

Since No Man's Sky's release in 2016, Hello Games has managed to develop 17 major content updates (not including the Halloween special update), four seasons of its multiplayer side game, Expeditions, and countless bug fixes and quality of life improvements. It has been two months since the last update and the last time fans waited that long for a patch, HG dropped the Frontiers expansion.

"Something is coming," I thought.

Indeed. Something is coming all right. All has been quiet on the No Man's Sky release page because Hello Games has been working on a Nintendo Switch port. The developer announced the news with a trailer during Wednesday's Nintendo Direct (below).

The trailer did not reveal many details. It mainly featured general gameplay but did not have the small print saying, "Actual gameplay captured on the Switch." So we should assume it wasn't. If you watch very closely, 15 of the 17 expansions are included. The two that were absent were Crossplay and Frontiers.

No cross-platform play makes sense on the Switch. It's probably not entirely straightforward getting the lower powered console to behave in multiplayer sessions with PCs and next-gen hardware.

The omission of Frontiers is also somewhat understandable since it's the most recent expansion, having launched on September 1. Updates have always been of considerable size, and HG just might not have had the time to fit Frontiers into its desired launch window. It is also possible that it is too much for the Switch to handle. Frontiers is about building large settlements, which can tax even more powerful hardware.

Expeditions were also conspicuously absent, but new seasons have been on pause for several months. The last season, "Revisited," was actually a rerun of the second Expedition, "Beachhead." It gave players a second chance to score the SSV Normandy SR1 frigate from Mass Effect. The last unique multiplayer adventure was "Emergence" back in October. So Expeditions could theoretically appear on the Switch whenever HG fires them back up again.

The saga of No Man's Sky has been a comeback story, not unlike Rocky. A small, virtually unknown studio called Hello Games had visions of grandeur, only to be beaten senseless by critics and gamers alike. But the can-do developer put in the extra work and effort and eventually won by knockout. Boxing metaphors aside, No Man's Sky's failure and then massive success is remarkable if not historic.

No Man's Sky will land on the Switch sometime this summer. My guess is that, barring any setbacks, Hello Games will release it around August 9, which is the game's sixth anniversary.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/93352-no-man-sky-lands-nintendo-switch-summer.html

 

[Prrredictable]

I've resisted any interest (however slight) to check this game out. That's mostly because it looked abysmally boring when it released. Even after some of the later updates, I never saw what the purpose of playing the game was exactly. However, after years of updates and now seeing people saying "they fixed a bad game," I wonder. Can anybody who's familiar with how the game stands now tell me if it's worth playing?

 

[Sausagemeat]

I've resisted any interest (however slight) to check this game out. That's mostly because it looked abysmally boring when it released. Even after some of the later updates, I never saw what the purpose of playing the game was exactly. However, after years of updates and now seeing people saying "they fixed a bad game," I wonder. Can anybody who's familiar with how the game stands now tell me if it's worth playing?

Yeah I played about 70 hours or so. It’s pretty fun, you can spend a bit of time upgrading your ship and getting to further out worlds. Then you can build a base, it’s not minecraft but it’s decent. In the end you do find yourself running out of things to do. It’s a lot better with friends for some reason.

 

[AMDGeForceRX4090]

I've resisted any interest (however slight) to check this game out. That's mostly because it looked abysmally boring when it released. Even after some of the later updates, I never saw what the purpose of playing the game was exactly. However, after years of updates and now seeing people saying "they fixed a bad game," I wonder. Can anybody who's familiar with how the game stands now tell me if it's worth playing?

Fun for a bit, then boring. The item management is still terrible.

 

[ZedRM]

This will be good for Switch owners who don't have PC's that can run this game well.

The complaints about it being "boring" are highly subjective. What excites one person bores another and vice-verse.

 

[Cal Jeffrey]

I've resisted any interest (however slight) to check this game out. That's mostly because it looked abysmally boring when it released. Even after some of the later updates, I never saw what the purpose of playing the game was exactly. However, after years of updates and now seeing people saying "they fixed a bad game," I wonder. Can anybody who's familiar with how the game stands now tell me if it's worth playing?

I'm a huge fan of it now. I was one of those hyped for release and ore-ordered the game. I was really disappointed. I only played it for a matter of hours before moving on to something else.

I would pick it up every time a new major update was released, but it was not until the Next patch came out that I felt the game was complete. Since then HG has added so much in the way of content that it's almost overwhelming. I'm particularly enamored with the VR mode. It's amazing. I've clocked a couple hundred hours altogether on it.

The storylines are much better than in the beginning and Expeditions adds unique quests to do. But it is still a sandbox at its heart. Everything is optional. Complete the main quest or don't. Do the expeditions or don't. It's all about doing whatever you find fun and there is a lot of stuff to do. It has exceeded its initial expectations.

Fun for a bit, then boring. The item management is still terrible.

It's not terrible, it's challenging. I find, the item management rewarding, particularly the boosts you get for proper mod alignments.

 

[loki1944]

Game is awful; changing platforms won't change that fact.

 

[ZedRM]

Game is awful; chaning platforms won't change that fact.

Subjective opinion. Lots of people love the game.

 

[BigRedPDX]

The game is okay, but yeah, boring at times. It depends on if I'm in a survival/creative kind of mood or not. Traveling to other worlds is pretty cool.