No Man’s Sky: Hype And The Art Of Vagueness - Enemy Slime

No Man’s Sky: Hype And The Art Of Vagueness

 Hello Games has a hard time answering a very simple question.

Editorial

In a world where someone will threaten to sue the creators of Suicide Squad because it didn’t feature the Joker as prominently as their marketing material portrayed, I can understand why Sean Murray wouldn’t be in a huge hurry to give almost any straight answers when you ask him a question about his game.

Can you see other players in No Man’s Sky?

Doesn’t feel like a difficult question to answer. Nor does it seem like something that would have anything beyond a “yes” or “no” answer. Either netcode that would allow to players to meet exists in the game’s current build or it doesn’t. Nevertheless it’s the day after release and players are having an awful difficult time figuring out exactly what the answer to that question is. Prior to release Sean Murray didn’t seem to have any qualms about offering a definitive answer, stating in multiple interviews that you would be able to meet other people in game (even if the chances of it happening were very unlikely).

So the game releases. On day one two people streaming the game on Twitch come to the realization that they’re very close to one another. They decide to meet up and after some work they arrive on the same space station together. Only they don’t see one another. They try again from a planet, they still can’t see one another. There’s any number of reasons why things aren’t working as expected. It could be server load, it could be instancing, we also have to account for the possibility that the game simply doesn’t allow players to see one another in its current state.

So hey let’s ask Sean Murray. Sean can players see each other in game?

Well they didn’t really find each other. Is this working as intended? Should they have seen one another in game?

Okay but what does that even mean?

Okay, so it’s server related. Is that why they couldn’t see one another?

Anyway, you get the general idea. This is the Twitter equivalent of “no comment”. Now it’s easy to assume malice where there might not be any and a large subset of the internet has already taken to demonizing Murray and Hello Games, painting them as liars who have deliberately mislead people regarding the capabilities of their game. Are those people right? Who knows. The PC version of the game ships in two days so it’s understandable that the studio might have better things to do than hang around on Twitter answering questions. Simultaneously though, if the feature is in the game and just not working properly that doesn’t seem hard to mention. If you can’t see other players at all and that’s as intended…well that’s gonna require a nice lengthy apologetic blog post further down the line.

Defenders of the game will be quick to remind you that most of its lofty expectations have been created from fans imagining scenarios or taking claims Hello Games has made and expanding upon them in ways that were never intended. And those people aren’t wrong, the fans get their own share of blame, and if you were one of those people who picked up No Man’s Sky and found yourself upset with what you received there’s a pretty good chance that the bulk of the blame lies on your own doorstep.

Murray’s behavior however is emblematic of the overall problems No Man’s Sky has faced along its development path. Has the hype machine gone out of control? Sure, but neither the studio or Sony have really made any effort to curb expectations. Even when Murray does try to get you into the right mindset he just can’t help himself with a little tease. For example:

Not a multiplayer experience? Perfect, that solves that case. Oh wait, another tweet…

Oh…

See what I mean?

The most likely scenario to me (and I’ve marked this as an editorial so I can conjecture all I please) is that the multiplayer component either doesn’t exist, or simply isn’t in the game yet, and Hello Games just assumed that their universe was so large nobody would ever actually notice. An infinite universe is a great place to lose all your gameplay promises. Really they can claim they’ve put just about anything into the game and then just tell you that nobody has found it yet. Hopefully word doesn’t get back to Peter Molyneux about that little manuever.

And the best part is we’re barely past launch and the hype train is already getting stuffed with coal for round two. For example have a look at this little nugget from the game’s first major patch notes:

Next up we’re adding the ability to build bases and own giant space freighters.

It’s nothing, it’s one line, and already it has caused an explosion of joy and excitement from the fanbase. We don’t have the slightest inclination what this feature will look like but that hasn’t stopped a lot of folks from having some very specific ideas.

This whole thing has been amazing to behold. A lot of the people who are responsible for hyping up the game in the first place are now wielding pitchforks and predicting what’s going to happen with the PC release. Will PC players be able to see one another? Is that a multiplayer concept that just couldn’t be recreated on Sony’s platform? Some people have already made up their minds how all of this will play out, but I think it’s best to circle back to Sean Murray’s mantra that he’s always sharing on social media:

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