Following the launch of Frontiers, the recent No Man's Sky expansion that added settlements, expanded base-building options and more to the game, the title has finally surmounted a huge milestone in its redemption arc with a change in its Steam review status – having progressed from 'Overwhelmingly Negative' at launch to 'Mostly Positive' today.
The turning point serves as a momentous occasion in No Man's Sky's five-year history and sparked a deservedly emotional response from Hello Games founder Sean Murray on Twitter:
you guys 😭 pic.twitter.com/eviUu0s4Og
— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) September 6, 2021
Tim Woodley, Head of Publishing at Hello Games spoke about the feat and what it has meant to the team working on No Man's Sky. "Over the last five years we've moved from 'Overwhelmingly Negative' to 'Mostly Positive', it's an incredible achievement for the team. Moving to 'Mixed', which may seem funny to celebrate, took two years of hard work. Moving from Mixed to Mostly Positive has taken the last three years (knowing that any small mistake along the way may result in backlash and negative reviews)." said Woodley.
"In some ways, it's easy to dismiss Steam reviews, it's a bit of meme to share the silly ones, but as a developer, they are undeniably meaningful. For five years now if someone bought No Man's Sky they had to do it in spite of a red or yellow warning symbol beside our name (and affecting the likelihood algorithm in charge of displaying the name in the first place). The team is really chuffed today at hitting this milestone but we also owe a huge thank you to the community, the players, but also folks like yourself who continue to support us to do this work we enjoy."
A shift in the title's Steam review status hasn't been the only milestone hit by the team following the launch of Frontiers. According to Woodley, the expansion has been one of the team's more popular to date, with the game featuring its highest player numbers in recent years and the No Man's Sky subreddit now comprising over 600,000 members.
Shifting a product's review status in the vein that No Man's Sky has done is no easy task, Woodley says. "Each percentage point becomes exponentially harder to earn as you move up the ratings. Moving from 20% positive to 21% positive may only require a few hundred positive reviews whereas moving from 69% to 70% needed 10,000 positive reviews. This is why it's so rare for games to change their All-Time rating and why we'd assumed that we might never be able to."
News of the game's new Steam status comes alongside the launch of the game's third expedition, Cartographers. As the name suggests, this latest quest for budding spacefarers within the No Man's Sky community focuses on planetary mapping and exploration. Unlike previous expansions for the game, Cartographers focuses on exploring a single planet, Gisto Major, where travellers are tasked with prepping a unique Starship for flight in order to escape a toxic atmosphere. As with No Man's Sky's previous seasons, players will be able to earn a range of new rewards during their expedition.
With so many players flocking back towards No Man's Sky, now might be the perfect time for beginners to don their astronaut gear and head out for the first time into the vast expanse of No Man's Sky's procedural universe. To find out more about what has been added to the game during its latest update, make sure to check out our full rundown of the expansion. Alternatively, you can check out the official trailer for Frontiers below:
Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN who can't help but smile for all those involved with No Man's Sky. You can follow him on Twitter.