With No Man’s Sky nearing release, Hello Games senior programmer Harry Denholm reveals that the developer plans on resetting the game’s servers before it launches next week.
Now that we’re less than a week before Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky is released, the developer is in the final stages of preparation for the launch of its much-anticipated space exploration epic. Seeing as how the game has captured players’ imagination with its blend of science-fiction and open-world exploration, it is understandable that Hello Games would want to retain that impression by providing gamers with the most polished and pristine version of the game. While the first major update for the game is more or less already complete, it appears that Hello Games has something else up its sleeve to ensure everyone can all enjoy No Man’s Sky on equal terms on day one.
Kotaku recently posted up an article mentioning that there was a discoverable planet named after it in No Man’s Sky, but it appears to only be a temporary thing as Hello Games senior programmer Harry Denholm took to Twitter to reveal that all servers will be “wiped” on Sunday, Not only does this mean that there will no longer be a planet named Kotaku to discover, every player will start with a clean slate on day one.
Servers are being wiped on Sunday pic.twitter.com/JTmzabmU1R
— Harry Denholm (@HarryDenholm) August 5, 2016
Since connecting a PlayStation 4 or PC online essentially logs the names of a player’s progress in No Man’s Sky, the server wipe shouldn’t affect many players on day one as virtually no one would have done any exploring yet. Having said that, the players shouldn’t need to worry too much about the online portion of the game. While there is online infrastructure in place to facilitate the potential meeting of other players in the game, Hello Games considers No Man’s Sky to be a single-player experience due to the vastness of the space environment, hence why the PlayStation 4 version of the game won’t require a PlayStation Plus subscription.
But as for those who have received an early copy of No Man’s Sky – such as press outlets like Kotaku or that guy who paid $1,300 for a leaked copy – this server wipe means that those who have managed to play the game will lose all their progress come August 7. At the time of writing, it is unclear whether players are able to sync existing offline data with the post-server-wipe version of No Man’s Sky, but stay tuned and we’ll keep you posted on any developments or announcements.
No Man’s Sky is scheduled for release on August 9th for PlayStation 4 and August 12th for PC.