While the very mention of live service or games as a service leaves a bad taste in the mouths of some players, it’s undeniable that when done correctly it can infinitely improve a game. One of the key examples is No Man’s Sky, which launched with a lack of content but after several major updates managed to become something very special. Now the developer behind it is looking to take that magic to a new IP.
As reported yesterday, the developer is working on a new project they are saying to expect to be as big and ambitious as No Man’s Sky. In an interview with Polygon, Studio Head Sean Murray confirmed that the game being worked on is not a sequel to No Man’s Sky. Murray said that part of why he broke away from working at EA was the sequels, and that was one thing he wanted Hello Games to move away from after making Joe Danger and Joe Danger 2, the games that preceded No Man’s Sky.
“I had worked at EA before I started Hello Games, and we’d just done lots of sequels,” Murray said. “Everything that I worked on was the sequel to something. I found that a bit of a depressing thing in some ways. It was part of the reason for moving.
“I had a little bit of a midlife crisis [after Joe Danger 2]. That’s what started No Man’s Sky, you know, I felt a panic. I knew as a studio I wanted to do the game that No Man’s Sky became eventually, but I was like, what if I never get to make that and what if we just keep doing the next thing and the next thing and life moves on. I was starting to think about having kids and stuff, but I was just like, maybe this is it? Maybe I just find myself on this treadmill forever?”
The company is still working on new updates for No Man’s Sky, so whatever this new game will be, we probably won’t find out much about it until much later down the road.