Personally, I liked No Man’s Sky– it gave me largely what I wanted, which was an endless expanse of space to discover and explore at my own pace. But even having been satisfied with the game, I would have to be foolish to deny that the No Man’s Sky that we got was not the No Man’s Sky that was promised- and that has caused a lot of outrage and discontent with the game, making No Man’s Sky the most controversial game release that there has been in years.
However, standing up for the game, PlayStation Australia said that No Man’s Sky delivered on unique content, which had been its fundamental promise- importantly enough, this information is not official company PR or their stance on the issue, but rather was communicated to a user via email, shared on Reddit, since deleted (via VG247). In this email, PlayStation Australia said that the game had delivered on its core promise, and would continue to grow and evolve in the coming months anyway.
“We are aware of comments online from some players expressing disappointment with the release features of No Man’s Sky,” the response reads. “During the development process, the game changed and evolved based on thousands of hours of user testing and feedback on what worked and what didn’t to bring you the best gameplay experience and the most fun. Hello Games made choices during this development which they believed would provide the best experience for the players.
“No Man’s Sky was intended to be something unique, vast and inventive, and we feel Hello Games delivered that. They are also working to ensure that No Man’s Sky will continue to evolve and benefit from new features over the coming months, and as such, we are not making any exceptions to our standard refund policy.”
Sony did publish the game, so it makes sense that they would want to stick up for it- but with that said, for a lot of users with legitimate grievances with the game, who may feel misled by what they got versus what was promised, this response is likely to be infuriating more than anything else.