No Man's Sky: iOS
Hello everyone,
A couple of years ago, shortly after we announced that No Man’s Sky was coming to Mac, someone on the team said "I reckon I could get this running on an iPhone". I honestly didn’t believe it until I played it myself for the first time. And I can't believe I'm saying the words "you can pre-order it from the Apple App Store now here!
A little like when we brought the game to VR or Nintendo Switch players, it started with a seemingly impossible technical challenge we wanted to disprove.
No Man’s Sky’s universe is generated at run-time which means that the environment you are exploring is being created by the device you’re playing on. There was something magical about seeing that universe being generated on a tiny device.
This is not No Man’s Sky Lite. It is the full universe to explore, complete with over forty major updates, including, COSMOS, which came out just a few weeks ago. It even includes our most ambitious updates like Voyagers from last year, which introduced the ability to build your own big rig starships (and which saw our player numbers jump to their highest levels since launch!).
Similar to our Switch 1 launch there are some limitations. Planetary Settlements are supported on iPhone 15 Pro and above, and multiplayer is not supported. On Switch we listened to players and built from there, eventually leading to a much expanded version on Switch 2.
We are excited to see player feedback on iOS, and will support it appropriately based on how many folks are playing.
We wanted this to be a moment where we opened up the universe to the widest possible iPhone and iPad audience. A lot of PC and console games, if they can make the jump to mobile at all, are confined to the very latest iOS devices, but we are super-proud that we have been able to make No Man’s Sky playable on iPhone 11 and 3rd generation iPad Air and above.
No Man’s Sky has on-planet controls, flight controls, first person, third person, vehicles, mechs… so many ways to play, making the usability challenge just as big as the technical one. We have rebuilt touch controls from the ground up to make No Man’s Sky feel totally at home on mobile.
In sandbox survival games, people can spend a lot of time crafting or in their inventory. I’m super proud of how quick and intuitive No Man’s Sky’s new touch controls feel. On top of that we support controllers, casting to TV, and even mouse and keyboard on iPad.
Generating a universe at runtime on device creates challenges, but it has some great benefits. The file size of No Man’s Sky comes in at under 4GB! It won’t use up all the storage space on your phone and it’s downloadable direct from the App Store in one click.
Perhaps most importantly we’ve put tons of work into battery life and thermodynamics, and we’re super proud that No Man’s Sky can be enjoyed for really long comfortable play sessions.
Pre-orders are now live as part of Apple App Store’s Indie Games Week and will be releasing a few short weeks later on October 28th. In an effort to welcome as many new Travellers to the universe as possible, it’ll be free to try at launch. We can’t wait for you to see it for yourselves.
Our journey continues.
Sean
P.S. Please consider wishlisting our next game, Light No Fire, here.
P.P.S. Hello Games are helping our friends at Ghost Town Games (Overcooked!) bring their next game to the world. It’s a fantastic co-op adventure called Stage Fright and you can check it out and wishlist it here.