Uploaded July 2017 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
It's been one year since the release of No Man's Sky and despite Hello Games releasing two major updates, the game's player base has all but evaporated. With that in mind, I jumped back into No Man's Sky so you don't have to; reflecting on the game's past, examining the updates and discussing why the game's biggest problems may be unfixable.
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Patreon - patreon.com/writingongames
Podcast (iTunes) - itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/writing-on-gamescast/id1124674245
Podcast (RSS) - writingongamescast.libsyn.com/rss
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Intro Text Provided by Lashman - twitter.com/RobotBrush
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No Man's Sky (Review) - The Vastness of Space, as Menu -
youtube.com/watch?v=WIHNZNfGf84
Exploring the No Man's Sky modding scene (article I wrote last year) - zam.com/article/1194/exploring-the-no-mans-sky-modding-scene
No Man's Sky - Steam Charts - steamcharts.com/app/275850
No Man's Sky - SteamSpy - steamspy.com/app/275850
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Thank you so, so much for your continued support. You all mean the world to me.
It's been one year since the release of No Man's Sky and despite Hello Games releasing two major updates, the game's player base has all but evaporated. With that in mind, I jumped back into No Man's Sky so you don't have to; reflecting on the game's past, examining the updates and discussing why the game's biggest problems may be unfixable.
---
Patreon - patreon.com/writingongames
Podcast (iTunes) - itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/writing-on-gamescast/id1124674245
Podcast (RSS) - writingongamescast.libsyn.com/rss
---
Intro Text Provided by Lashman - twitter.com/RobotBrush
---
No Man's Sky (Review) - The Vastness of Space, as Menu -
youtube.com/watch?v=WIHNZNfGf84
Exploring the No Man's Sky modding scene (article I wrote last year) - zam.com/article/1194/exploring-the-no-mans-sky-modding-scene
No Man's Sky - Steam Charts - steamcharts.com/app/275850
No Man's Sky - SteamSpy - steamspy.com/app/275850
---
Thank you so, so much for your continued support. You all mean the world to me.




![How the Meaning of Vanquish (and Spec Ops: The Line) Changed
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Vanquish was recently re-released on PC to the delight of the cult following it has developed since 2010. Whilst the experience has remained largely unchanged, however, as a whole it meant something very different to me now than it did back then; all because of the new context under which I was playing it.
This also got me thinking about games whose themes rely on context to convey meaning. Spec Ops: The Line turns five in June, and yet the industry it was furiously reacting against has changed dramatically since then. In this episode of Writing on Games then, I want to explore just how much a shift in context can have on the meaning of a game, and what this means for the future of our medium.
Nier Automata & How We Define Meaning in Video Games (SPOILERS) - [game array] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNjJ8skeG1g
Why Sledgehammers founders wanted to take Call of Duty back to World War 2 (VentureBeat) - https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/26/why-sledgehammers-founders-wanted-to-take-call-of-duty-back-to-world-war-ii/
EA turns horrors of WWI into tone-deaf Battlefield 1 memes, quickly deletes them (Polygon) - https://www.polygon.com/2016/10/31/13478344/battlefield-1-ea-deleted-tweets-marketing
Call of Duty WW2/Infinite Warfare footage from Activision
Battlefield One/Army of Two footage from EA
Far Cry 5/Rainbow Six Siege footage from Ubisoft
Gears of War footage from Microsoft
Bayonetta footage from Sega
Devil May Cry 4 footage from Thunder Kat - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CcQEW8bjlk
50 Cent Blood on the Sand footage from gamesoverdose - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qADNFcVQ4c
Thank you all SO much for your continued support. Whether you support the Patreon, subscribed or just watch the video, I just want to say thank you—people like you are changing my life for the better every day. How the Meaning of Vanquish (and Spec Ops: The Line) Changed](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/BvTGmRedBqQ/mqdefault.jpg)





