No Man’s Sky might have been seen as a good game by some, but the vast majority of the gaming populace saw it as one of the most disappointing games of all time. This is in part due to the game’s shallow mechanics, but an even bigger element of it is how the game was sold to the public. The Game Awards and other events showed off amazing trailers and gameplay demos for No Man’s Sky, most of which turned out to be near-complete fabrications. The fallout from this is just now being felt with The Game Awards being changed in some big ways.
In an interview with Polygon, The Game Awards host and creator Geoff Keighly explained how he felt somewhat responsible for the hype surrounding No Man’s Sky, and how he will be changing the show going forward.
“I have thought about the story of No Man’s Sky a lot,” Keighley explained to Polygon. “Did we create this black hole of hype that the developers couldn’t pull themselves out of? Some of that was authored by me. There is a good moral of that story and it’s part of what I’m trying to address this year; to have developers be more transparent about the state of their game.”
This apparently means that game videos and demos will feature less CGI and more of a deep dive into what the game actually is, and how it will play. “We’re going to have more diving deeper into games and gameplay,” said Keighly. “We’re going to get deeper looks at premieres; they’ll run four or five minutes. I think people will be surprised at the depth of some of the game content we will show this year.”
Of course, this doesn’t mean we’ll have a full understanding of the quality of the eventual product. Early demos are hard to create and show off, and the entire structure around this has been changing wildly over the last few years. Still, Keighly is pushing for changes, and they seem to be for the better.
We’ll find out when The Game Awards airs December 1st online.
