There was a point that No Man’s Sky would never see the light of day and players would just be left in the dark as Sean Murray of Hello Games recently revealed that the title was nearly cancelled. The Hello Games managing director has stated that he practically decided not to show the game’s trailer at the VGX Awards back in 2013 because it received poor reaction from his friends.
No Man’s Sky Was Almost Cancelled Because Initial Reactions Were Poor
In an interview with IGN, Murray explained that when he first showed the No Man’s Sky trailer to his mates, he got negative responses from it, as per PlayStationLifeStyle. However, Geoff Keighley, which was the event organizer, told him that he should proceed by showing the trailer to the world as he already secured a slot for the game’s teaser into the show.
It turned out that the game got positive reviews from the larger audience and it even gained praises from viewers over at the 2013 VGC Awards. However, after a few weeks after that event, Sean Murray was about to cancel the game once more, but this time it was due to the Hello Games’ office being seriously damaged by a heavy flood.
It was a point wherein even if Sean Murray and his team were to try and back up No Man’s Sky, there were some efforts that were clearly wasted and lost. Murray said, “I think if we hadn’t announced the game — I nearly backed out of it. And then had been flooded, it’s hard to know… I think we might have canned No Man’s Sky.”
Murray described the incident as lost hope for the game as the team started feeling “unsure of it.” In fact, he explains that there was a point wherein they questioned themselves, “what they were doing?” However, the flood then became an inspiration instead of a devastating outcome for the game as it made the team more eager to finish the title, Game Spot reports.
The entire team for No Man’s Sky comprises of 10 people, and they have worked together in order to bring back their office to its original state. They need to develop new PCs that were damaged/destroyed from the flood, along with other things that need fixing. In order to become more motivated, Sean Murray told his team that they have gone through a “crappy” situation, but they should look forward towards the future instead of glooming around the past. It was then when they decided to reveal the full game at E3.