10 years ago this month, Hello Games released No Man’s Sky on PC and PS4. And according to the studio’s development chief Sean Murray, after all these years and millions of players exploring the game’s vast digital universe, the community has explored less than one percent of No Man’s Sky.
On August 10, Murray posted an open letter to the No Man’s Sky community celebrating the game’s 10-year anniversary and its history of big, free updates that have added tons of new features and turned the game into something incredibly special. According to Murray, 2026 saw the game’s highest number of players since launch, which is an impressive statistic, especially when you consider that at launch No Man’s Sky was seen by some online as a misfire from a studio that overpromised and underdelivered. That’s not the case in 2026.
Perhaps the most interesting bit of information to come out of Murray’s letter is that after millions of players have explored the game’s digital universe for a decade, over 99 percent of its planets remain unseen and unexplored. That’s not too surprising to hear, as No Man’s Sky contains 18 quintillion planets, and it will take players an estimated 500+ billion years to see everything in the universe.
Another stat I found nice to hear: Murray says most of the relatively small team that shipped No Man’s Sky a decade ago is still at the studio and working on future updates for the game while also building its next ambitious-looking release, Light No Fire.
“As long as the team are having fun conjuring up ever-crazier additions they want to add to the game,” Murray told Xbox, “and as long as there is a passionate and positive community enjoying what they make, I’d love for this journey to continue.”
Here’s Murray’s full open letter.
Hello!
I feel surprisingly emotional today. Ten years ago, on 9th August 2016, travellers across the universe set foot on their first alien planet in No Man’s Sky.
Perhaps you were there ten years ago, or maybe you joined later. It’s very cool to me that all around the universe, other Travellers have woken up on countless other planets, light years apart from each other. They took their first steps on their first planet and brought a new unexplored universe into existence together.
Since then millions of players have made No Man’s Sky their home, created insane bases, built communities, made friends, and built really creative custom ships.
For any game to reach its ten-year milestone is impressive and I think that is especially true for No Man’s Sky. It’s really a testament to the passion of the team here and of the players for the game, that this year we’ve seen our highest player numbers since launch, and won a TGA and BAFTA for best evolving game.
Over the last decade, the No Man’s Sky players have joined us in another type of journey as we grew, expanded and deepened what No Man’s Sky could be. With now 40 major updates, all free, we have expanded our sandbox universe with base-building, exocraft, settlements, mechs, pets, living ships, expeditions and rebuilt the universe several times over. Support for Switch, XBox, VR, PSVR, Switch 2, PS5, XBX and more has been added along the way. In fact No Man’s Sky is supported on about as many platforms as there are team members!
It became a bit of a meme at the time, me holding up the gold master disc of No Man’s Sky but I’m proud to say that most of the people in that photo are still at Hello. The No Man’s Sky team has evolved over that period of course, but it is not really that much bigger.
Since then tens of millions of Travellers have spent hundreds of millions of hours exploring and sharing their discoveries and the universe is more vibrant now than it ever has been. Voyagers released last year saw more players than we’ve had since launch… and still, all these years later players have explored less than 1% of the planets in No Man’s Sky.
In a similar way our small team feels we have a lot left to explore in what No Man’s Sky can be. In the background we are busy cooking on our next game Light No Fire, and big things for the future of No Man’s Sky, with the tease of our upcoming update titled “COSMOS”. More will follow!
I consider myself exceedingly lucky to work with the people I do, on a game I love with one of the nicest communities in video games. If you’re reading this, then it is because you have shown us a kindness over that period. Big or small that helps Hello Games do what we do. For that I am truly grateful.
Thank you so much,
Sean.
