On Sunday, July 21, the SF game No Man’s Sky reached 48,499 concurrent players on Steam. The game had a higher number in August 2019, five years ago. The player counts are further fueled by a Steam Sale. Hello Games’ Managing Director, Sean Murray, celebrates the success.
What kind of update is this? The update is called 5.0 “Worlds Part 1” and was released on July 17 for No Man’s Sky:
- Players can discover new worlds and biomes – including worlds with floating islands.
- The graphics now look more realistic.
- Additionally, the game has been rejuvenated with numerous new features, including solar ships and expeditions where players fight giant insects.
No Man’s Sky has the highest player counts on Steam since August 2018
These are the impacts on player counts:
Before the patch, the player counts on Steam were somewhat stagnant, with between 4,000 and 8,000 players online at the same time.
However, starting from July 17, the player counts on Steam began to rise continuously: first to 14,000, then to 21,000.
On Saturday, there were already 30,000 people online at the same time, while on Sunday the peak reached 48,499 concurrent players.
No Man’s Sky has reached such high numbers only three times in its history: during the disastrous launch in 2016 and in summer 2018 and 2019.
Steam reviews rise to 93% in the last 30 days
Here’s how the developer feels: Sean Murray cheers for “#1 in the Steam charts.”
He writes that he loves how the community welcomes so many new players with open arms.
Currently, No Man’s Sky is discounted by 60%.
The reviews from the last 30 days are outstanding at 93% positive:
- A player with 185 hours writes: One of the last developers who is not greedy.
- A player with 9,300 hours praises: No Man’s Sky saved his inner space cadet because it taught him to get off his structure obsession and let himself drift through space. Though the review appears to be inauthentic.
No Man’s Sky is regarded as a game that has fought its way back from the bottom. At launch, the game was criticized for the developer having overhyped it and making promises that it couldn’t keep even remotely. We dealt with the difficult history of the MMO a few years ago on MeinMMO: No Man’s Sky reviews after 5 years “mostly positive”: Others developers should (not) take this as an example
