1.) The No Man’s Sky Debacle
First teased at the VGX Awards in 2013, No Man’s Sky’s enticing promise of a nearly-limitless journey through space captured the gaming world’s attention, and things really ramped up after a gorgeous demo was shown off by Sony at E3 2014. While a few – including we at COGconnected – expressed concern that the game might be promising more than it could deliver, those voices were definitely lost in a huge crowd of excitement. Not much was heard about the game after that, except the odd leak of images online, but player interest grew to a fever pitch. Fans’ enthusiasm to play the space-exploration game got so intense by early 2016, Hello Games head Sean Murray received death threats when the game was delayed in May.
As the new August release date loomed, one particularly eager fan reportedly purchased a bootleg early copy of No Man’s Sky for $1,250 in July. He promptly posted much of his progress online, giving away some key aspects of the game ahead of release. One not-so-great revelation that came out was that the game’s campaign – an interstellar journey through a supposedly gigantic galaxy – could be completed in less than 30 hours. Worried that the game would be “spoiled,” Sean Murray himself pleaded with the early player to cease and desist – which the player did. But damage was done, and we got our first hints that No Man’s Sky might not live up to the massive hype that had grown around its development.
Then, the game released, and things started to fall apart. Despite decent reviews, players complained that No Man’s Sky was not the game they had been promised by Sean Murray. It didn’t have multiplayer, its “quintillion” planets were boring, and to add insult to injury, the game ran horribly on PC. Hello Games released a PC Patch, but the chorus of critics grew. Even Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida criticised Hello Games for the way No Man’s Sky failed to live up to expectations.
By September, many players had abandoned the game, and its price was slashed. Sean Murray went silent on Twitter, in an apparent effort to fix the shortcomings of the game – a move that only stoked the fury of players. In November, Hello Games resurfaced to announce a huge “Foundation Update,” which added base-building and other aspects missing at launch. But it seemed like too little, too late for many. By December, many were putting No Man’s Sky on their lists of Biggest Disappointments of the Year.
Those were the Top 5 Biggest Stories in Gaming this year here at COGconnected. How about you? What were the stories that got your attention this year? Let us know in the comments below – and see you in 2017!