No Man’s Sky is coming out on August 9 and it’s probably the most anticipated game of the year. It’s going to be big. What’s more, it’s the sort of game, like Pokémon Go, that benefits from early adoption. You’re going to want to pick it up right away so you can be part of the process of discovering how the game really works. Unfortunately for us, though, high demand combined with a persistent world means there’s going to be server trouble… and total chaos.
No Man’s Sky Launch: Basically Pokémon Go All Over Again
Big games with big server needs often don’t launch well… especially when it’s the sort of game with one persistent world for everyone, like No Man’s Sky. All of a sudden, on August 9, Sony’s servers—or Hello Games’ servers, if we’re really in for trouble—are going to be hammered. No Man’s Sky is a hugely anticipated game, and hundreds of thousands of people are going to be trying to play it all at once. There’s not going to be a stress test or anything beforehand. It’s all going to come at once. Expect big server troubles, disconnect errors, weird glitches—the same sorts of things we’ve seen with Pokémon Go. The game is supposedly at least partially playable offline, which could ease server stress substantially, but we don’t know how the feature will work in practice.
There’s another element, too. Nobody really knows what No Man’s Sky is going to be like. Sure, we’ve seen lots of the gameplay, but like with Pokémon Go, the devil’s in the details. How do you fly your ship? How do you explore efficiently? What can you do on a planet? How can ships interact with each other, if at all? What resources matter most, and where can you find them? How will the free-market economy start to shake out? This is where the “chaos” comes in. Even if the servers work perfectly or don’t end up needing to do that much, the sheer complexity of the game will create a true free-for-all out there in space.
Like with Pokémon Go, gamers will be frantically trying to figure out how to actually play this unique game. It’s the exciting kind of chaos—the feeling of discovery. It will be total crazy-town for a while, but it’s also the best reason you should buy the game right away. You don’t want to miss out on that thrill.
