No Man’s Sky, 2016’s once infamous, now rightly famous space-faring game of infinite galaxies, that currently requires 32GB on your PC, is…coming out for mobile?! It turns out that Hello Games has spent the last three years figuring out how to get the game to run properly on iPhone or iPad, but without compromising or removing content. And if the footage in the in the trailer matches what’s released, then bloody hell.
And this isn’t vanilla No Man’s Sky, an earlier version before the last decade of updates: this is the whole thing! It’s got everything, including last month’s massive Cosmos update, and there are multiple parts of my body currently weeping that this hasn’t been created for Android.
According to an update from Sean Murray on Hello Games’ site, this all began shortly after announcing the game was coming to Mac. One member of the team said, “I reckon I could get this running on an iPhone,” which Murray considered at the time to be “seemingly impossible technical challenge,” but one the team “wanted to disprove.”
The emphasis from Hello Games is that “this is not No Man’s Sky Lite,” but core full game, including the huge updates from the last couple of years. Of course, physics still apply, so it’s not literally the same game as on PC and modern consoles. “Similar to our Switch 1 launch there are some limitations,” explains Murray. “Planetary Settlements are supported on iPhone 15 Pro and above, and multiplayer is not supported.” However, all iOS devices from iPhone 11 and 3rd gen iPad Airs can play the game, albeit without the settlements.
Obviously the UI and controls have been redesigned for touch screens, but the game will also play with controller, and even mouse and keyboard. But most extraordinary is the news that it’s somehow been reduced to under 4GB. Hello Games even claims it won’t instantly destroy your battery, but rather “can be enjoyed for really long comfortable play sessions.” Can all this really be real?
The iOS version of No Man’s Sky is due out October 28, and will use the new trend of “free to try,” although the price of buying the full game (and it’ll be the full game, not in-app purchases or piecemeal payments) is not yet revealed.
I know an Android version isn’t likely, but please oh please, this would be so stunning on my Pixel Tablet.