Sony Exec Responds to No Man's Sky Controversy

PlayStation executive Shawn Layden appeared on the Live with YouTube Gaming show last night and discussed a number of subjects, including the reaction to controversial space game No Man's Sky.

He said developer Hello Games had an "incredible vision" for what they wanted to make (via DualShockers). The executive added that No Man's Sky, which features procedurally generated worlds, is something that had never been done in gaming. He also remarked that the team was very small (only six people developed the game) and had a "very huge ambition."

The game launched in August for PS4 and PC without a number of features that director Sean Murray discussed prior to launch; the game and its creators were criticized for this. Layden acknowledged that Hello Games is "still working at it."

"They're still updating it. They're trying to get it closer enough or closer to what their vision was," he said. "I played a lot when it came out."

"I think what we learned from that is that we don't want to stifle ambition. We don't want to stifle creativity," he added. "We don't want to put people into slots where they must execute against an action adventure path or a fighting path or a shooting path. Perhaps over time [No Man's Sky] will reveal itself to be all it can be."

Layden went on to praise Hello Games for their huge ambition for No Man's Sky, while acknowledging that "sometimes you just don't get all the way there at the first go."

"Nobody in development wants to say that they can't do a thing, right? No one wants to tell someone, 'No I can't do that for you,'" Layden said. "People are really trying. I think looking at the different industries I've had the privilege of working, the gaming industry is where everybody has the courage to say 'yes.' And they want to try to realize their ambitions. They want to try to make that vision. No one slinks away from a huge challenge. And sometimes you just don't get all the way there at the first go."

Murray, No Man's Sky's director, has talked about adding new features to the game over time as free DLC, including base-building and more. The game's latest update came out at the end of September and fixed bugs and other issues.

In September, The UK's Advertising Standards Authority launched an investigation into No Man's Sky after it received "several complaints" about the game's potentially misleading advertising. After that, the No Man's Sky subreddit was temporarily closed, after being described by its moderator as a "hate-filled wastehole."

No Man's Sky was the second best-selling game in the United States in August, behind only Madden NFL 17. The game failed to make the top 10 chart for September, while it didn't make the top 20 chart for PlayStation Store games that month.

More recently, the Hello Games Twitter account tweeted about No Man's Sky being "a mistake," but it turned out that this tweet was the result of a hack.