GameSpot may receive revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and from purchases through links.

No Man's Sky Dev Responds to PC Issues, Steam Reviews "Mostly Negative"

The game's blastoff is facing some issues.

410 Comments

Ambitious space-exploration game No Man's Sky launched today on PC, but the game's release for computers apparently has not gone entirely to plan.

Reports today claim the PC version is struggling with a number of performance issues, including frame rate dips and crashes in some cases, among other problems. The game's Steam page features close to 3,500 reviews and carries a "mostly negative" reception at press time.

No Caption Provided

Now, game director Sean Murray has responded. Across a series of tweets, the developer talked about some of the major issues the PC version is facing now and some workarounds, where available.

For more on the PC version of No Man's Sky, check out this post to see its file size, graphics options, and recommended system specifications. We'll report back with more details on the PC situation as they become available, but for now, buyer beware.

Developer Hello Games is currently working on a patch for No Man's Sky's "most critical issues," but the studio hasn't said what those are. Additionally, the UK-based studio has hired an external QA team (which is bigger than all of Hello Games) to assist in smoothing out the experience for players.

If you just picked it up on PC, take a look at Everything You Need to Know About No Man's Sky before starting. We've created a lot of beginner's guides and tips to make your journey more efficient, lucrative, and enjoyable.

The PC version of the game was recently delayed by three days; it was originally supposed to launch on the same date as the PS4 version in the United States. Although we don't have a full review of the game yet, you can read our ongoing pre-review No Man's Sky Diary series here.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

Join the conversation
There are 410 comments about this story
410 Comments  RefreshSorted By 
GameSpot has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to toxic conduct in comments. Any abusive, racist, sexist, threatening, bullying, vulgar, and otherwise objectionable behavior will result in moderation and/or account termination. Please keep your discussion civil.

Avatar image for deactivated-651c3cb8decf4
deactivated-651c3cb8decf4

303

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 5

i had my fun with it, but now a days, ehhhh I wish i never picked this shell of a game up

Upvote • 
Avatar image for baasgene
baasgene

49

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 0

Issue number #4, game is dull, boring, repetitive and frankly rubbish. No workaround so far.

Upvote • 
Avatar image for crxuchilbara
crxuchilbara

830

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Has anyone decoded how to say **** off?

Upvote • 
Avatar image for ergonomico
ergonomico

53

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 0

Edited By ergonomico

The bugs are present on ps4 too Even wrote to the hellogames support about. And one bug doesn't allow you to go on with the game.

Upvote • 
Avatar image for yoda101280
yoda101280

556

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 14

User Lists: 0

I play the game on max settings with no real problems, not sure why so many people seem to be having so many issues. The very first day I play I was getting some of that large random FPS spikes but now I don't even get that hardly at all. Which isn't to say the game doesn't need a little attention but it's highly playable and pretty smooth and stable for me.

Upvote • 
Avatar image for ergonomico
ergonomico

53

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 0

@yoda101280: Its not only that. You do not play as others and bugs are a matter of chance. Its a bit like making statistics where they say that smoke its the main cause of heart attacks in europe BUT "he, my grandfather smoked for 50 years and died when he was 90 years old".

For example on the ps4 i got stuck by a bug and to continue play i should uninstall and delete the save files. Not so many people got stuck as i did even thought there some videos on line.

Upvote • 
Avatar image for ObsidianReio
ObsidianReio

71

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@yoda101280: They're having problems and you're not because their systems are different than yours. Games run differently depending on the system specs, and even someone with a high end system, like me, is getting FPS stutter and lockups. It's no wonder they didn't send PC review copies out. It wasn't ready for release on the platform.

3 • 
Avatar image for deathlordcrime
DeathLordCrime

893

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 5

This game isn't even worth 60 dollars especially for an indie. If this wasn't supported by Sony it would turn up as an Early Access Game.

2 • 
Avatar image for JakeTehNub
JakeTehNub

134

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@deathlordcrime: Yeah being $60 makes no sense. A big reason games cost that much is from the producers.

Upvote • 
Avatar image for game4metoo
game4metoo

586

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By game4metoo

Pc is not bad. A lot of ppl wanna play on pc but don't know what they're doing. You would be surprise how much ppl buy these games w/o reading the specs. Remember dark souls? The crashing at the bondfire? The problem: low-end graphic cards. Not that that would fix all the problems but it would fix half the users problem. That and updating gpu

Upvote • 
Avatar image for Fernin-Ker
Fernin-Ker

451

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 0

@game4metoo: Bruh, I've got a 1080 and I can't even run this mess at 60fps at medium. Contrast running Doom maxed at 150+ fps.

The ball was dropped here, HARD.

4 • 
Avatar image for game4metoo
game4metoo

586

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@Fernin-Ker: AMD or intel cpu and what is ram gb

Upvote • 
Avatar image for Fernin-Ker
Fernin-Ker

451

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 0

@game4metoo: 32gb and 3570k clocked at 4.6

There's no excuse for this game's crap performance.

Upvote • 
Avatar image for insothinktank
InsoThinkTank

12

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@Fernin-Ker: I'm running a 5 yr old cpu and 2 yr old gpu, game runs fine at 1440p.

I honestly think ppl did not read the specs and or don't know crap about PC hardware and how it works.

https://youtu.be/FZoEWseKZvk

Upvote • 
Avatar image for Fernin-Ker
Fernin-Ker

451

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 0

@insothinktank: Oh please, I'm sick of this crap, I'm sitting on a computer that crushes games like Doom and Crysis 3, and NMS still runs like crap, even with updated drivers.

Upvote • 
Avatar image for yogibbear
yogibbear

293

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@Fernin-Ker: Bruh I've got a 1080 and game runs flawlessly at all max settings at 1440p. You're doing something wrong Bruh.

4 • 
Avatar image for Fernin-Ker
Fernin-Ker

451

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 0

@yogibbear: Right, I must be willing my computer into performing badly just so I can trash talk NMS, right? Even though anything and everything else I play runs flawlessly.

Upvote • 
Avatar image for GoingPostal13
GoingPostal13

57

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 0

@yogibbear: Well if it's working for you, there can't possibly be a problem.

Upvote • 
Avatar image for dark_sith_
dark_sith_

53

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By dark_sith_

I'm sue that in a year this game will be fully fixed. What worries me is the lack of meaningful content most reviews are pointing to. A sale buy for me, if even that. All that insane hype really came back to bite them, imho.

3 • 
Avatar image for reavern
Reavern

445

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By Reavern

Anyone else suffering a recurring slowdown problem every 3 hours of gameplay? The game slows to a crawl and becomes unplayable. It doesn't appear to be a frame rate issue, because the video isn't glitchy or jumpy. The whole game slows down -- even dialogue text scrolls slowly -- as if the CPU dropped to 10% power or something. The only fix is to save and exit, which isn't a big deal, but annoying.

It's strange that it happens every 3 hours, like clockwork, as if there's a cache or buffer that fills up, and then you have to quit the game to purge it. Seems like sloppy game design and lack of QA testing.

Upvote • 
Avatar image for dellers
dellers

56

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By dellers

@reavern: Yes, has happened to me 3 times I think (basically all the sessions that long). It's quite weird, it just comes outta nowhere and doesn't go away. Usually not much of a problem, but it's annoying if I'm far away from a save point. It's the only issue I have with the game though, and not a critical one since it takes so long for it to happen.

Upvote • 
Avatar image for reavern
Reavern

445

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@dellers: Yes, as bugs go, it's not so bad, because it's possible to play the game for a few hours without a problem. But the fact that it recurs like clockwork indicates it's an error that should've been found and fixed prior to launch.

Upvote • 
Avatar image for yogibbear
yogibbear

293

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@reavern: Yes, feels to me like my VRAM is getting maxed out, because for me it's after 7 hrs (8GB VRAM). Just exit and reload the game and back to smooth V-sync'd 60fps.

Upvote • 
Avatar image for reavern
Reavern

445

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@yogibbear: That makes sense. I have a 780 Ti with 3 GB of VRAM, so that explains why the slowdown happens after 3 hours for me and 7 hrs for you.

This kind of technical problem is totally unacceptable -- I don't recall ever playing a video game with this problem before. It just demonstrates what a half-assed game dev Hello Games is, and proves they didn't perform proper QA testing for the PC. My guess is that NMS was so buggy prior to launch (hence the delay) most players weren't able to play it for 3+ hours continuously, which is why the bug wasn't found and fixed.

Upvote • 
Avatar image for charlieholmes
charlieholmes

290

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@reavern: Slow memory leak might be the cause especially if you're seeing it at a consistent similar length of playtime. Bad coding that's not optimized to keep the leaks from occurring over the length of play. I've had numerous games I could play for awhile and then have to do a save restart of the game and sometimes my whole system too.

Only them cleaning that code up and patching will improve it.

Upvote • 
Avatar image for nyran125tk
nyran125tk

787

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 0

It sux, but I still recommend to buy a game a few months after release day on PC. I'm a pc only gamer now and Sometimes i just wait and play games I havent got round to playing yet. (Theres heaps of them). Unless its a multiplayer game and you kind of need to buy it on day one to keep up with everyone else's weapon upgrades.

3 • 
Avatar image for TehMasterer2
TehMasterer2

177

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Not including redists in the initial installer? Rookie mistake. :P

Can't do much about people running old GPU drivers though.

2 • 
Avatar image for Cryio
Cryio

502

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 17

User Lists: 0

Question: Is No Man's Sky the 2nd game ever released on PC that uses OpenGL 4.5, besides Doom?

Upvote • 
Avatar image for LilRoss2k3
LilRoss2k3

175

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 0

no one can put out a game that works on release day anymore. probably never happened on PC anyway, though.

2 • 
Avatar image for omgmynamewontfi
OMGMYNAMEWONTFI

38

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@LilRoss2k3: i bet deus ex works no problem next week

Upvote • 
Avatar image for muzza93
muzza93

1182

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 0

PC Mustard race

4 • 
Avatar image for jyml8582
jyml8582

1709

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 0

Arkham Knight had worse PC launch.

3 • 
Avatar image for Cryio
Cryio

502

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 17

User Lists: 0

@jyml8582: And Arkham Knight got patched! It's close to perfect nowadays on PC. Even being dramatically prettier than the console versions.

2 • 
Avatar image for ecurl143
ecurl143

787

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 5

User Lists: 0

@jyml8582: I dunno, I would say that Homefront The Revolution takes that prize.

Upvote • 
Avatar image for thereal25
thereal25

2074

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 7

User Lists: 0

I'm surprised by the number of reviews actually.

2 • 
Avatar image for nyran125tk
nyran125tk

787

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 0

@thereal25: considering none of them have probably played it for more than 10 minutes.

Upvote •