Gamers Are Confused About the Lack of Multiplayer in No Man's Sky

A space game has come out. It's not entirely set in space. In fact, you can end up spending a lot of time planet side. It focuses on exploring a huge, nearly endless universe. There are other creatures and evidence of other sentient races afoot, but you can't physically interact with other players. There is no multiplayer. The best you can hope for is to occasionally see something influenced by a different player. But regardless, you will never see another player no matter what. That game is Spore.


Yes, that Spore.

And in 2016, that game is No Man's Sky. Let me just set the record straight. There is no multiplayer in No Man's Sky. I know it may have been hard to parse that out over the years of interviews, but it doesn't have it. It never planned to have it. Ever. In most interviews where he was asked about multiplayer (see: virtually all), at best, Sean Murray bumbled about how that wasn't the "focus" of the game.


Mumbling imminent at 3:53.

See? There, we get a vague, "that's not really what the game is about." Given, vague wording is not really the best way to discuss game mechanics. But when you think about it, if No Man's Sky did have multiplayer, wouldn't he have been more clear and excited about it? If he had the ability to say, "Yes, No Man's Sky absolutely has multiplayer," then wouldn't he have just said that? To do otherwise would be like he said, "I mean, a procedurely generated universe isn't quite exactly the entire point of the whole game." It wouldn't have made sense.

I do feel I need to mention that Murray wasn't always even this clear about it. You see, at worst, he stumbled a little differently with his words. And what I mean by that is that he lied. Just flat out lied.


Lie imminent at around 5:50

For those of you who are allergic to YouTube videos, Stephen Colbert asks Murray, "Can you run into other people, other players on the game?" Murray takes less than a second's pause before coming back with "Yes, but the chances of that are incredibly rare." Unless his definition of the word "rare" is "impossible" and his definition of the word "yes" is "no," then he lied. Regardless of what he said, though, I feel I must stress this again: No Man's Sky does not have multiplayer whatsoever.

I'm sorry if you bought it thinking that it would. I'm sorry if this completely ruined your experience with it. I truly am. I fully understand the problem of a limited budget for video games. I feel the pain of being able to buy one game each year. It sucks when it doesn't deliver on your expectations. If you don't believe me, allow me to leave you with this. I was, and still am, a huge Peter Molyneux fan.