Development of No Man's Sky
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No Man's Sky is a 2016 video game developed by the British development studio, Hello Games. No Man's Sky allows the player to partake in four principal activities—exploration, survival, combat, and trading—in a shared, deterministic, procedurally generated open universe, which contains over 18 quintillion (1.8×1019) planets each with their own unique environment and flora and fauna.
The concept of No Man's Sky is based on a long-time desire by Hello Games' founder, Sean Murray, to create a space exploration game that captured the vision and optimism of science fiction writings and art of the 1970s and 1980s. Seeing the game as a landmark title for the studio, Murray led Hello Games towards financial stability with their Joe Danger titles and then began working on the game with a small team of four. The game was formally revealed during the 2013 VGX Awards, following which Murray brought on more staff to complete the title over the next three years.
Much of the game uses parametric mathematical formulae that can simulate structures found in nature to craft nearly all aspects of the game's universe. Flora and fauna are crafted from similar routines that combine human-supplied art and pre-defined structures into new lifeforms. The audio and music in the game is also procedurally generated, with routines and audio created by Paul Weir and music provided by the band 65daysofstatic.
The onset of development for No Man's Sky arose from Hello Games' co-founder Sean Murray sometime during the development of Joe Danger 2 (2012), which he compared to a mid-life crisis for himself.[1] Murray, a former developer at Criterion Games for the Burnout series, worried the studio would be falling into a rut of producing sequel after sequel as was the case at Criterion. When Hello Games had problems with an American publisher, Murray realized they had an opportunity to create a completely new title based on a concept he had since he was a child, when he had aspirations of being an astronaut, envisioning oneself as being the first human to step onto an alien planet.[2][3]
No Man's Sky was an attention-getting concept that the studio had since inception. Murray described that in bringing on board Dave Ream, the team's creative director, that Murray described how there are skyscrapers in the world that are well visible but built on standard designs, and then there are smaller, minimalist architectural designs, which is the direction that Murray wanted to take the studio. Ream agreed, but insisted that the studio at some point would make the game equivalent of a skyscraper, a game they could develop without any limitations. This proverbial game, "Project Skyscraper" was kept in mind as the studio began to expand and acquire the necessary finances to pursue other titles besides Joe Danger.[2]
“Elite was procedurally generated, and so were lots of games at the time, like Star Control and Freelancer. It's almost like we've gone back to those games. We're trying to explore ideas about openness, and vastness, and freedom.”
Murray wanted to re-create the feelings of space exploration seen in older procedurally generated games, including the galaxies of Star Control II, Elite, and Freelancer.[4][5] Elite was a memorable part of Murray's childhood, as a similar open-world space exploration game.[6] He realized that real exploration meant "seeing something that no-one's seen before and for your experience to be unique", rather than pre-planned content and puzzles.[7] His concept for No Man's Sky was also influenced by the "simplicity and elegance" of Journey's game design.[8]
Murray's tone for the game was influenced by science fiction works of the 1970s and 1980s. Murray attributes ideas from the "Big Three" science fiction authors—Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert Heinlein—whose stories he considered "fantastical - it's vibrant, exciting and the unexplored".[9] Murray also considered Frank Herbert's Dune influential as it "paints this picture of a world that’s so believable".[8] Another avenue of influence was the state of current science fiction media, which Murray compared to similar commentary from Neal Stephenson on how most mainstream works focus on a dystopian story; for Murray, he wanted No Man's Sky to be much more optimistic and uplifting.[10]
Murray was also inspired by the cover art paintings on these science fiction works from the period, which typically were done by freelance artists and bore little connection to the story within but made for visually alluring scenes.[11] Duncan credits much of No Man's Sky' art influence from the work of Chris Foss, who drew covers for many science fiction books and magazines and had a significant influence in science fiction film and video games. Duncan noted that "he created this kind of art when everyone else was creating black starfields, grey dull monolithic spacecrafts".[12] Other art influences included John Harris, another book and video game cover artist; Jean Giraud (aka Mœbius), a science-fiction and fantasy cartoonist; and Ralph McQuarrie, a concept artist for several major Hollywood films.[12] Duncan also cited the films of Ray Harryhausen as an influence in terms of the exploration of the unknown.[12] Murray noted the iconic "binary sunset" shot from the original Star Wars film, which featured two suns rising on the planet Tatooine as the "perfect alien image" that captured the nature of science fiction.[8]
Production
With the success of Joe Danger and its sequels, Murray was able to spend a few days each week for about a year to develop the core engine of No Man's Sky in secret from the rest of the team. Once the engine was completed, Murray brought in a small four-person team to work on the game directly, while Joe Danger 2 was being developed by the rest of the company. They worked in a spare room, lining the walls with science fiction imagery to help inspire them. Their work was kept in secrecy from the rest of the development team, leading to some tension within the offices, though Murray had done this specifically after seeing how small exploratory groups did not work well at Criterion Games. Further, Murray was concerned about describing the game too much, and fears that even teasing about the title would lead to misconceptions about the scope and nature of the game. Ultimately, Murray was encouraged by Geoff Keighley to premiere the title at the 2013 VGX awards,[13] and in preparation, created the short teaser which they shared with the rest of studio days before the awards show. As development continued, more of the team was brought on board to help complete the game, with the final team being composed of thirteen members.[2][14]
This VGX teaser brought much attention to the title from the gaming press.[15][16][17][18] Duncan noted that following the reveal, he found it "incredible how many developers came up to us afterwards, and they were all saying this is the game I always wanted to be making, or I started working on a game like this".[12]
A flood wiped out most of their Guildford office and equipment on Christmas Eve 2013 but they were able to recover the work they had done already and resumed development shortly thereafter.[19] Murray later acknowledged that he had been tempted to cancel No Man's Sky at this point, but the flooding helped re-solidify the Hello Games' team, as prior to the flood, the team was still split between those working on No Man's Sky and those continuing the Joe Danger series. Everyone in the company came together to help rebuild their office and computer equipment, giving new vigour to the project.[20]
Just prior to the VGX showing, Murray had shown the title around to various publishers, and Sony, particularly Shahid Ahmad, Sony's head of independent games development in Europe,[19] expressed strong interest in having the title for the PlayStation 4. Murray stated that although Sony offered to provide financial support, he and Hello Games only wanted Sony's commitment to help market the game, including having the game formally introduced at Sony's main media event during the upcoming Electronic Entertainment Expo 2014 (E3); until that point, no independently developed game has been demonstrated during these centre-stage events.[11][21] Sony's UK marketing director Fergal Gara has stated that Sony is fully committed to supporting the title, treating the game as if it were from one of their first-party developers and considering a potential retail release of the game.[22]
Hello Games prepared a six-planet demonstration that would be used for the E3 event and subsequently used to showcase the game for the media while the full version – nearly always in a constant state of flux due to the procedural generation approach – was being developed.[11] The game was announced at E3 2014 with plans for a timed exclusive release on the PlayStation 4,[23][24] and would have later been brought to Microsoft Windows.[25] However, speaking to the media at the E3 2015, Murray stated that they now plan to release the title simultaneously for both platforms, though did not specify a release date.[26] Murray stated that unlike more traditional games, where completion of the fixed number of levels and other assets can be treated as an assembly line and schedules projected from that, the interconnectivity of all the various systems within No Man's Sky requires them all to be working together to make the game successful, and would only feel comfortable on assigning a release date once that is completed.[21]
Since its reveal, Hello Games have showcased the game to numerous members of the press and video game journalists. Many of these demonstrations have provided possible ideas for gameplay additions as feedback, such as adding land vehicles to explore planets or allowing players to construct buildings on planets. However, Hello Games have opted to avoid such feature creep, with Murray stating that they wanted to be able to deliver on the large, grand vision they had, and to add more features would have required a larger team and more funding, something they did not want to do.[21] Murray specifically wanted to avoid base building initially as this would discourage players from exploring the rest of the universe.[27] Following release, Hello Games does plan to add base building and the ability to buy and customize larger freighters in future updates.[28]
