There is no shortage of news coming out about Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky review this week — not all of it positive. With today’s launch of the PC port, more negativity has begun to surround the divisive title.
Based on early impressions, the PC version of the game is sort of a mess. Users have reported stuttering, low framerates, and limited graphical options, among other problems. That’s not to mention myriad crashes and the game outright refusing to start. It seems as if the PC version was a rush job, and that the PS4 was, in fact, the lead platform.
On top of this, older CPUs can’t actually run the game. Without a CPU that supports SSE 4.1, the game won’t run. Users that can max out recent releases like The Witcher 3 and Doom have reported that No Man’s Sky refuses to run. This means that players running AMD Phenom II and older Intel CPUs can’t run the game. Hello Games gave no indication that this would be the case ahead of time.
In fact, lead developer Sean Murray is still not being upfront with the issues. On Twitter, he is offering basic, catch-all fixes for the game without actually addressing the issues. On top of this, he is blaming the performance problems on “server issues.” However, No Man’s Sky is a game that actually can played totally offline, as I tested that feature out. Graphical glitches and performance problems wouldn’t have anything to do with the servers.
During all of this, the No Man’s Sky subreddit has been blowing up. Fans are accusing Sean Murray of lying, and of supposedly polished PC port being a rushed job. Of course, these are just accusations, but they definitely hold water. It seems like this is a sloppy port, and the excuses for it being one are lackluster at best.
Personally, I hope the issues get addressed and people who want to play this game can do so. As much as I wasn’t taken by the final product, there’s definitely an audience for it.
UPDATE: Hello Games has issued a press release addressing the issues and promising fixes.
