No Man's Sky just had its biggest month in years, despite competition from Starfield

Words By Dan Lipscombe

It’s perhaps not a surprise that No Man’s Sky is having its biggest month for years, given how much Starfield riffs on features from its closest spacefaring competitor. As over six million players launch to Bethesda’s stars, it’s sharing some of that success as players yearn for space.

Hello Games, creators of No Man’s Sky (and possibly one of the best reaction gifs ever) have announced that “seven years in and No Man’s Sky is having its biggest month in the last few years."

Take a look at our video review of Starfield below.

It’s not really a surprise. Usually when a game with a very defined genre sees success, or captures the attention of the consuming public, those players are likely to spread out into similar games.

Some of those players may be a little disappointed in Starfield’s exploration and want to capitalise on the many updates we’ve seen in No Man’s Sky, while others may have finished their Bethesda space jaunt, and are hungry for more.

Whatever the reason, it’s always good to see other games enjoy some success. Hello Games founder Sean Murray went on to say the bump in players is “across all platforms - PC, Xbox, Game Pass, Switch, PlayStation, Mac and VR.” He was quick to welcome new and returning players to the community. ASfter all, the Hello Games team have put in a staggering amount of work to refine the game, particularly on its seventh anniversary.

When looking at the game on SteamDB, you can see the game saw an uptick of players from the start of August, through September. As VG247 notes, on 3 August, No Man’s Sky player count rose from 7,200 to 34,000 by the end of the month.

It helps that over the years Hello Games have relentlessly updated the game, adding in more features than could have been imagined at launch and it can now be played almost everywhere, including on the recent Valva handheld Steam Deck.

If you’ve come to the end of your space adventure, you should definitely check out No Man’s Sky next.