Procedurally generated prog rock music video No Man’s Sky is coming to Switch later this summer, Nintendo announced today during a 40-minute Nintendo Direct.
First released in 2016 for PlayStation 4 and PC, the space exploration sim has perhaps one of the best-known redemption arcs in gaming. Ahead of release, its developer made lofty promises about visiting a bazillion planets, which were immortalized in print with coverage in vaunted outlets like The New Yorker. This all resulted in delirious anticipation, but upon release, players found a game that, while visually stunning, was devoid of touted features like functional multiplayer.
A steady wave of updates, expansions, and added content have essentially morphed No Man’s Sky into the game everyone expected. Not sure if you’ve heard, but it’s good now. Along the way, Hello Games expanded its purview and released the game on more platforms.
Read More: The Unexpected Success Of No Man’s Sky
In 2018, No Man’s Sky landed on Xbox One. Two years later, during the launch window of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, it landed on those, too. And just last year, it (finally) hit a largely “positive” rating on Steam, the popular PC storefront.
Now, it’s coming to Switch. An official date was not announced. Today’s announcement was relatively slim and didn’t seem to show off anything that’s not already in the game.
That said, it’s hard to imagine such a game running on the relatively lower-powered handheld console, no? It’s technically possible to play No Man’s Sky offline, but you miss out on many of the good community features that way. And we all have horror stories about the reliability of Nintendo’s online connectivity. Plus, even on more powerful consoles, No Man’s Sky occasionally sputters.
As Kotaku’s John Walker quipped in Slack, just after the reveal, “I can’t wait to play No Man’s Sky at 8 frames per second!”
Where’s that rumored “Switch Pro” when you need it?