Is it ever too late to save a failed game?

Remember No Man’s Sky? Prior to release, the game was surrounded by staggering levels of hype, with many hoping it would prove to be something special. Sadly, upon release many discovered a title that was shockingly mediocre in many aspects. In particular, people were outraged that so many features that had been promised over the years of rampant hype were missing, and that what they had bought was more akin to a Steam Early Access title than a fully priced AAA game. Hello Games’ radio silence for months following release also did little to help. Understandably, people began to wonder if the game was dead, as is often the case with such titles.

Until, that is, last week, when Hello Games finally revealed what they had been working on- The Foundation Update, which adds, amongst other things, base building and freighters to the game. However, the question is, is it too late for No Man’s Sky? And can such a late update salvage a mediocre title that has burned what little goodwill it had?

This isn’t the first time that a game has tired to re-invent itself post launch; in fact, multiple games in recent years have attempted to do this, thanks to weak launches. Take Final Fantasy XIV. The MMO launched in a truly wretched state; it received mostly negative reviews from critics and was largely labelled as broken in several key areas. After a couple of years trying desperately to salvage the decaying corpse, it was eventually completely rebooted. It became Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, touting a whole new engine, new gameplay features, and far less fragile servers.

I have no idea what’s happening in this game half the time, but people seem to like it. Image Credit: Square Enix/Pressxtra

Surprisingly, this worked. Square Enix managed to take what was essentially a dead game and re-purpose it into to something new and much improved that people actually wanted to play; something the original release never managed to be. The servers are still alive and well to this day, with an expansion, Heavensward, already released and with another planned for 2017.

Counter Strike: GO is another example of this. What started life as a title that few cared about about, thanks to its positioning as a port of the hit game to consoles, has quickly developed into one of the most popular games in the world today. During its first year of release it was significantly less popular than its predecessor, with many die-hard fans focusing on the older Counter Strike: Source. Yet, thanks to continued developer support, today the game has peaked at over 800,000 concurrent players, and has become an incredibly popular e-sport as well as a source of revenue for multiple YouTubers.

It’s no surprise that CS:GO has survived; shooting terrorists never quite gets old. Image credit: International Video Game Archive

It’s clear then that games can be salvaged despite poor launches. A bad release doesn’t automatically relegate a game to the realms of the a bargain-bin. Can the same be said of No Man’s Sky? Can it hope to bounce back and become something beloved? In all likelihood, probably not.

There has simply been far too much negative press surrounding the title for it to now achieve success. No matter what Hello Games adds to it; it will forever be tarnished with its own legacy. No Man’s Sky was such a big name prior to release, and the subsequent launch was such a mess, that people are unlikely to forgive or forget quickly. Most players will never be able to trust Hello Games following the lies and misinformation, and even more will be too hurt by the crushing disappointment they felt on release to give the game another chance. No matter how hard Hello Games tries to realise their original vision, there is little they can do. Their support is gone, and the fans are gone. Can a game bounce back from a poor launch? Certainly. But, in this instance, that probably won’t happen. The No Man’s Sky dream is already dead.