No Man's Sky director: 'everything is to the wire, we work all night'

WIRED speaks with Sean Murray, co-founder of Hello Games and director of No Man's Sky, on the studios rise to fame, the perils of being labelled "indie", and using the game as a gateway to classic works of science fiction. 

Indie game developer Hello Games was once best known for the quirky mobile game Joe Danger and its sequel. Then, in 2013, it introduced the world to the 18 quintillion-planet cosmos of No Man's Sky, and the creators at the Guildford studio found themselves literally in a different universe.

"I actually thought we were making something quite niche and experimental, y'know? In some ways, I still do," Murray says. "It's just that now we have the voices of people in the community encouraging and supporting us, which is really nice. But I didn't sit down to make No Man's Sky and think 'this is going to be incredibly mainstream' or whatever. I think that's probably surprised everyone -- it's still a surprise now for people, I think."

The game in question is an ambitious space sim that almost defies description. With a procedurally generated universe containing a practically limitless number of planets to explore, each ranging from desolate rocks floating in the void to thriving, populated worlds, the expectations surrounding the game are appropriately vast.

Murray and his team have found themselves caught in a strange position where everything from the scope of No Man's Sky, to its launching at 'full price', to the size of the development team has lead to Hello Games' standing as an indie developer being scrutinised.

"I have had other indie developers say to me 'oh, you're not indie anymore' and I sort of find that super strange, because nothing's changed actually," Murray says. "We're around the same size of company as we were when we made Joe Danger. We're still self-funded, we're still pretty poor -- everything's to the wire. We still work all night."

"I definitely struggle to find a definition for 'indie'," he continues. "I know that we're still independent, that we still live or die on our own, and that this is our game that we have creative control on. We're not some big studio, we haven't become huge in size or anything. But 'indie' is this term that brings lots of other meaning with it. I think it means to me is being innovative and left of field, experimental -- kind of like I would think of in music, or like it used to be in music, 'indie' used to mean that. I would argue that we're still those things."

As game development tools improve in both power and accessibility, allowing creators to produce content that rivals so-called triple-A titles, are players unfairly expecting indies to remain the underdog? Murray says, "I think it would be really sad if your game becoming popular or having excitement around it meant that you weren't 'indie'. I would rather hope that the expectations are getting expanded rather than it means we're no longer that term."

The success of No Man's Sky feels simultaneously swift yet slow-burn, the result of three years build up. "We've been announced and ready to come out for a normal amount of time. I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing that it feels like forever!", Murray offers. It's led to a game that seems to only just be on the cusp of reality. But the pressure of delivering a hit has naturally isolated the team from their fans.

It's a situation that Murray wants to correct once the game is out. "My life is a weird one now," he says. "We probably aren't 'allowed' to make Joe Danger 3; we're probably not 'allowed' to make No Man's Sky 2. What I would really like to do, even though we're absolutely killing ourselves on this game at the moment, is work on No Man's Sky even more once it's out. Expand it, be able to speak to the community. I feel like that opportunity has been kind of stolen from us by the game becoming popular. I feel like when it's out and it's a real thing, then we can have a more normal conversation with people and ask them what they think about this real thing, rather than this concept."

Given the vast expanse of No Man's Sky -- 18 quintillion planets is a number so large it's hard to accurately conceptualise, let alone visit, and that's not counting the time you'll spend soaring through space or engaged in dogfights -- support and evolution of the game rather than discrete iterations makes more sense. In short, don't expect that "No Man's Sky 2" anytime soon, even if Murray were "allowed" to make it.

"The No Man's Sky 2 thing is kind of a joke. We would probably never do that," he laughs. "What I'd love to do, [being] in that sandbox genre, is increase the feature set after the game comes out. I actually think we don't want more content in the game, what we want is lots more opportunities and different ways for people to play the game. Whether that's simple things like different weapon types and abilities and ways to upload and share things about the game, or whether it's being able to play in totally new ways. Almost the same way that Minecraft started out as a survival game and that's kind of where we see ourselves, and that's really expanded. Now it's best known as a creative game."

Before people started getting hands on with No Man's Sky, the comparison to Minecraft was made very often, and it's not entirely inaccurate. There are definite similarities, from the acquisition of materials used to build or enhance new equipment, to the simple freedom to explore and progress with no set guidelines. Hello Games' effort takes things to an exponentially grander level though -- you can't (yet) engage in interplanetary trading in Mojang's blocky phenomenon, after all.

"I feel like we're not really like Minecraft but I am totally happy -- and who wouldn't be -- to be compared to the world's most successful game!," Murray says of the contrast. "I'll happily take that! I just don't think it's particularly correct."

Ultimately, No Man's Sky is science fiction at its purest, challenging players with big ideas and concepts. It wears its sci-fi inspirations on its sleeve too, from its otherworldly art style, intended to evoke the weird painted cover art of classic SF novels, to quotes from notable authors of those novels that pepper the game's few loading screens. Those quotes aren't just Murray and co. showing off their literary credentials to earn geek cred though -- they want the game to become a gateway to turn players into readers.

"I hope that we're going to get at least one person to look some of those books up who might not otherwise have," Murray says. While the likes of Asimov and Clarke are among many writers that get references, there is one quotable figure who won't make it to the final release of the game though.

"We've currently got some Jaden Smith quotes in there -- we need to remember to take those out before the game ships!"

No Man's Sky is released in the UK on 24 June, for PlayStation 4 and PC.