No Man’s Sky’s long, belabored development was filled with vague promises. Perhaps the most enticing was the prospect that you would be playing in a massive multiplayer universe. The game’s head developer Sean Murray would often make statements about how the game was so massive that the chance of running into a specific player was incredibly unlikely. But by saying that it led people to believe it was still technically possible.
Now that promise (that Murray did seem to walk back in later interviews) seems to have been proven false. Two Twitch streamers managed to arrive on the same planet, but could not see each other.
Murray’s reaction to the encounter was vague and muddled. First on Monday, he seemed to imply that multiplayer interactions were not possible.
To be super clear – No Man's Sky is not a multiplayer game. Please don't go in looking for that experience.
— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) August 8, 2016
We do have some online features and easter eggs so people can know they are playing in the same universe. It's about cool "moments"
— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) August 8, 2016
This would mean that players could see if another person discovered a planet or alien lifeform, but were not actually playing together. But then after it was revealed that the streamers could not see each other, he seemed to blame it on the servers.
We added a 'scan for other players' in the Galactic Map to try to encourage this happening. We wanted it to happen – but the first day?
— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) August 10, 2016
It is a testament to how amazing our network coders are that Discoveries are still working at all.
— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) August 10, 2016
So is it the servers, probability, or what? Why can’t we see other players in the game? Some theorize that the streamers were just in different lobbies. When standing in almost the same place, it was daytime for one streamer and nighttime for the other. Different game lobbies could explain the discrepancies — but that would also mean that it is even harder to run into another player.
Others just think Murray is full of it, and the game is simply single player.
https://twitter.com/GhostofCoolidge/status/763375535401598977
Adding to the confusion is this picture on Reddit of a Spanish copy of the game where a sticker covers the online symbol.
Murray’s non-statement and evasion around the question probably mean players will be unable to see other players, at least until a later patch. The universe just got a whole lot lonelier.
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