Starfield hasn’t hurt No Man’s Sky’s popularity – it may have even helped it

No Man's Sky has been one of the best examples of a video redemption story, and developer Hello Games never stopped expanding the game with new content, and more features. Just recently, the procedural space adventure celebrated its seventh anniversary with the Echoes update, and it doesn't look like there's an end in sight to this support.

But do these updates bring back players? The answer is an emphatic yes! Hello Games founder, Sean Murray, recently revealed that No Man's Sky is having "its biggest month in the last few years." Interestingly, this is happening across all platforms where No Man's Sky is available - so PC, consoles, Mac, and even VR.

The news is actually a little surprising, because it's all so close to the launch of Starfield - Bethesda's highly-anticipated, big space RPG, which borrows a few elements from No Man's Sky.

If you look at No Man's Sky trends in recent weeks (on Steam, at least), you can already see a clear rise in player activity just as we got closer and closer to the launch of Starfield. That interest has also persisted, though we can only monitor Steam in this instance.

We can't view other platforms, but it's worth noting that No Man's Sky is available on Game Pass - across all formats. It's normal for games in the same genre to boost the profile of each other, but there's also a case to be made that some of that interest could be because Starfield is not on PlayStation.

It's also not entirely out of the question to suggest that many of the players disappointed with Starfield were driven to look for their fix elsewhere, and the No Man's Sky of 2023 looks like a compelling alternative - even if the two games are not entirely comparable.

No matter which way you see it, this is good news for both games, so anyone who enjoys either (or both) can only benefit from this.