10 Exact Moments Hated Video Games Were Saved
2. The "Beyond" Expansion - No Man's Sky
No Man's Sky made a craterous impact when it was first shown off at E3 several years ago, quite literally promising the universe. With that in mind, it was inevitably going to disappoint someone, but I doubt Hello games were ready for the pure irrational vitriol that followed the game's release.
From a combination of exaggerating the truth for buzz (which EVERY game company does, let's be fair) and a string of costly disasters during development including their entire office flooding, No Man's Sky was incomplete when it first launched.
Players were treated to an empty nothing of a galaxy with basically nothing to do within it. Which, while having an appeal on its own, was not what a lot of folks were looking for. Or at least, they expected a bit more meat on the bone if that was going to be the angle.
Fortunately, Hello Games bounced back quickly and got to work on adding in the stuff that things like the office flood kept them from putting in the vanilla game. This resulted in the Beyond Expansion, which is the now default form of the game.
With base building mechanics, more freedom with what kind of explorer you can be, and online multiplayer, No Man's Sky is finally the game that we were all promised all those years ago.