No Man's Sky Steam reviews have recovered to "mostly positive" after 5 years

No Man's sKy
(Image credit: Hello Games)

No Man's Sky Steam reviews have finally hit "mostly positive" overall, finally bouncing back from the game's troubled launch. 

Hello Games boss Sean Murray celebrated the milestone on Twitter. At the time of writing, Steam says No Man's Sky is sitting at 70% positive reviews overall, which means that roughly 114,137 of its 163,053 reviews are positive. Compare that to reviews based purely on the current state of the game: 91% of the most recent 4,045 reviews are positive. There's a bit of napkin math between review criteria, but the message is clear: No Man's Sky is a good video game. 

"Moving to 'mixed' took nearly two years," Murray explained, "moving to 'mostly positive' has taken the last three. Each all-time [percent point] is exponentially harder. 69 to 70 percent took nearly 10,000 positive reviews. Never thought we'd be here. We're incredibly grateful for players' continued support." 

Longtime No Man's Sky fans will likely remember that the game received scathing criticism when it was released back in 2016, and may well have submitted such feedback themselves. Rather than a review bomb meant as an act of protest, the game's initial wave of negative reviews reflected the general attitude toward the then-meager space sim. Of course, looking at the game today, it's easy to forget how sparse it used to be. Through years of no-doubt painstaking work, No Man's Sky has become the game to point to when talking about comebacks – a vibrant, thriving universe that's long since surpassed its initial promise. 

Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.

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