No Man's Sky out in October on Switch, will be single-player-only "at launch"
Physical PS5 version coming too.
If an entire universe in the palm of your hand sounds neat, you're probably already excited about the launch of exploratory space sim No Man's Sky on Switch. And it turns out the wait for its arrival won't go on too much longer, with developer Hello Games having now confirmed it'll be coming to Nintendo's console - initially as a single-player-only experience - on 7th October.
No Man's Sky, of course, launched for PC and PS4 back in the summer of 2016, giving players an entire procedural universe to explore as their whims took them. That initial version memorably came in for some criticism, but Hello Games has continued to expand on the game's solid survival core since then, delivering over 19, often significant, free updates.
These have introduced the likes of base building, bobbleheads, farming, giant customisable space freighters, land and water vehicles, pilotable mechs, living ships, alien-infested space derelicts, new flora and fauna, pets, live-service-style community expeditions, music tools, sand worms, and more - all of which should be included at launch on Switch.
One notable ommision, though, is multiplayer - added to other platforms in July 2018, and enabling players to build, explore, and battle with friends - which won't be included in the Switch version "at launch". Hello Games says it'll continue to expand the game post-release, but there's no word on whether that'll include the eventual arrival of multiplayer on Switch.
"No Man's Sky on this tiny portable device feels both completely natural and also totally improbable at the same time," Hello Games' Sean Murray said of the new Switch version as part of today's announcement. "This has been a real moonshot for our small team. No Man's Sky is built around procedural generation, which means the console generates everything you see. This makes it so much harder to bring our game to something like the Switch, but I think this team never seems happier than when they are trying to do near-impossible things."
Alongside the physical and digital release of No Man's Sky on Switch, Hello Games is launching a PlayStation 5 physical remastered edition on 7th October. "This is the first time [since] 2019 that you could buy a copy of No Man’s Sky in the shops," Murray noted. "The box of that version boasted 'Contains all seven major updates'. The fact that we are just about to hit our 20th free update is a reminder of how busy we’ve been in the last three years!".
No Man's Sky's most recent update, which arrived in May, fulfilled another popular community request by finally introducing space whales to the procedural universe as part of the game's latest Expedition adventure. Hello Games hasn't yet said whether it'll be giving Switch owners the opportunity to experience previous Expeditions when the game launches in October, but given how good some of their rewards have been, we can but hope!