In context: No Man's Sky turned five years old over on Monday. The epic space explorer had a rough launch being largely incomplete and replete with broken promises. However, developer Hello Games never gave up on its vision. Through a series of massive updates, it delivered on all its promises and more, making it arguably one of the greatest comeback stories in gaming history.
No Man's Sky has seen 16 major updates since launching on August 9, 2016. The first several were just deliveries on elements that Hello Games said would be in the game but didn't make it in time for launch. The developers didn't stop there, however. Subsequent releases included visual overhauls, group exploration, animal companions, cross-platform play, and more.
On Monday, Hello Games Sean Murray reminisced about the long road from dumpster fire to what NMS is today. Every update strived to add core game mechanics and deep content, and all for free. Many players in the community, including myself, have purchased multiple copies of No Man's Sky to thank HG for its hard work and for going above and beyond when other developers would have thrown in the towel and wrote the game off as a loss.
"It hasn't always been easy, but the thing that has been our guiding star throughout has been the players and the community," Murray wrote.
Not only has HG not thrown in the towel, but it also plans to continue delivering free content for the foreseeable future. Murray revealed that the next update, titled Frontiers, is in the works and is coming soon. However, neither Murray nor the reveal trailer (above) he included in his post gave away any details about what Frontiers would bring to the game.
"In some ways, [Frontiers] is just another update, but in other ways, it's a missing piece of the sci-fi fantasy that we've always wanted to add, and very fitting for our fifth anniversary," Murray teased. "There is still a lot we want to try, so much we are still excited for. The next step on that journey is not far off. We'll have more to share on Frontiers with travelers very soon."
The only thing that we can say for sure about Frontiers is that it should wow fans. The track record of its past efforts reflects that HG is quite capable of adding incredible experiences to its masterpiece. The fifth-anniversary update will very likely be something special.