10 Awesome Video Games Betrayed By Terrible Marketing
3. No Man's Sky
As the expression goes, you should under-promise and over-deliver when it comes to fulfilling what’s been agreed upon. Someone should’ve told Hello Games founder Sean Murray that in the lead-up to 2016’s No Man’s Sky, as he did the exact opposite (and it quickly bit him and his game in the butt).
Basically, it was billed as a groundbreaking open-world survival simulation that’d allow explorers to interact with ostensibly limitless procedurally generated creatures and planets (complete with their own ecosystems, resources, aesthetics, behaviors, and the like). Maliciously or not, Murray oversold the experience during his various media appearances as well.
Upon release, No Man’s Sky wasn’t entirely hated, but it drew a lot of criticism for being substantially dull, limited, and buggy compared to what Hello Games vowed to create. The pushback was so severe that—in 2016—the UK Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) launched an investigation into false advertising.
In what’s probably one of the greatest video game comeback stories ever, though, No Man’s Sky managed to redeem itself with a multitude of updates. Today, countless players and journalists have praised Hello Games for doing what needed to be done to largely deliver on their initial promises.