To say that the much-hyped universe exploration game No Man’s Sky didn’t live up to players’ expectations is an understatement. Players thought they’d be able to explore an infinite universe filled with unique planets, but what they got is a procedurally generated game that feels more like 18 quintillion bowls of oatmeal. Disappointment has led fans to list every possible grievance they have against the game, as well as personally attack the game’s lead developer Sean Murray.
Today, however, the hate against No Man’s Sky reached a new low, with the community becoming so toxic a moderator of the game’s leading sub-Reddit, r/NoMansSkyTheGame decided to shut it down.
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“It’s become a hate filled wastehole of no actual discussion,” moderator R0ugeW0lf wrote. “It’s not what we intended it to be and I don’t like providing a platform for hate. I’m sorry to everyone who used the subreddit as intended but you are now in the majority.”
The subreddit was purged, but its admin returned to see the chaos it has wrought, dismissed the current moderators, unlocked the sub-Reddit, and enlisted a new team of mods.
Some leaked text and voice chats allegedly show that the sub-Reddit was not very well managed (and R0ugeW0lf has since nuked his Reddit and Twitter presence), so a change of the moderating guard might have been called for either way. But there’s no denying that the unreasonable hate that people have for No Man’s Sky is finding some strange new lows in the gaming community.
The sub-Reddit’s implosion follows a week in which enough complaints from players in the UK has prompted Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to investigate the game for false advertising, while other players outright called for Sean Murray’s arrest. I’m going to say this flat out in case you aren’t already hip to it: that is all absolutely ridiculous.
As we wrote around the time of the game’s release, Hello Games showed parts of the game that aren’t currently in the final product, but that is all too common with video game advertising. The difference is that, prior to release, No Man’s Sky captured the imagination of players in a way it could never live up to, which has in turn sparked a kind of indignant rage only a team of sociologists in the future will be able to fully unpack.
Like I said, the sub-Reddit is up and running again, and at the moment is mostly doing a lot of self reflection on what the hell went wrong. Here and there, there are some threads on cool planets and creatures that players have found. So perhaps burning it all to the ground and starting over again wasn’t such a bad move.
If all else fails, we’ll still always have the chill r/NoMansHigh.
