No Man's Sky Updates Need Extra Time For Steam Deck Optimization

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I still remember the state No Man’s Sky released in years ago, but the team at Hello Games has beaten the odds. They’ve been releasing countless free updates and have completely transformed the game from its original state. Now, it’s one of the best games to play, and there’s still more and more coming. However, it appears that with all these updates, they take around two or three times longer because they want to make sure the game is good on the Steam Deck.

In a post on Twitter/X from the No Man’s Sky engine programmer, Martin Griffiths, mentions that the team needs more time to get these updates running on mobile platforms (Switch and Switch 2) and the Steam Deck. This is due to memory constraints, since these devices tend to share their memory between the system and the game. Still, he mentioned that “it’s actually a delight to beat impossible memory constraints with a growing game”, so it sounds like the team actually welcomes the challenge.

The mobile platforms like Switch 1 and 2, along with Steam Deck take a disproportionate amount of engineering time with every update we release. A bunch of us at Hello Games probably spend 2-3x more time to make these updates seamlessly work, exactly like the other consoles do along with PC/Mac etc.

It’s really a delight to constantly beat impossible memory constraints with a growing game to allow people to continue to experience and enjoy #NoManSky.

Martin Griffiths - Twitter/X Post

I, for one, am glad that they do it. The updates keep pushing out our incredible content, including the newest Xeno Arena update, which introduces a Pokémon-like creature battle system. It’s actually insane seeing how they’re still updating the game after 10 years with free updates, and I can’t wait to see what they’re going to do next.

No Man's Sky is on sale for $23.99 until April 20th and is rated Verified.

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