‘No Man’s Sky’ Release Pushed Back, Likely to Late Summer
You'll have to wait a little bit longer for this highly-anticipated sci-fi adventure.
Hello Games’ procedural sci-fi adventure No Man’s Sky is reportedly slipping past its June 21 release date.
Kotaku is reporting that the game is getting pushed out at least until July or August, based on a tip received from a source close to the matter. Additionally, the story includes pictures of new Gamestop marketing materials for the game with “coming soon” stickers over the previously-announced release date, submitted by an employee.
No Man’s Sky’s premise is essentially a kind of living universe, a space sim where you can fly to any point on the map – made up of millions of randomly generated planets which you can then land on in order to gather resources, explore and engage in other survivalist or combat-based activities.
It’s been so hotly anticipated that even Kanye West wanted a chance to see it at last year’s E3, though the developers had to turn him away for Steven Spielberg and Elon Musk. Although June 21 was the first official hard release date for the game, the previously expected launch window has already been moved back a few times.
As an independent publisher as well as developer, Hello Games is free to delay their game without the kind of often-ironclad release dates that many publishers stick to in an effort to keep up quarterly earnings, but it’s probably a good thing – colloquially, players will remember if a final product is bad, but probably will forget delays after release.
What may be more likely than just polish – despite No Man’s Sky also coming to PC – is that the upcoming release of PlayStation VR. Virtual reality support for Sony’s headset, which is set for an October release, has been previously confirmed; furthermore, if rumors of the upgraded PS4 Neo are true, that may be playing a part in the delay as well.
Apart from that, Sony also allowed Naughty Dog, their top first-party studio, to delay Uncharted 4 from the end of 2015 until this month, and it sold 2.7 million worldwide in its first week. Even if fans have to wait until possibly late summer to get their hands on the game, they should probably appreciate it in the long run – it’s not like The Last Guardian has been a short wait.
