No Man's Sky (2016)
We will always have a soft spot for No Man's Sky, whatever the haters say. The thrill of breaking atmosphere on a new world and carving our way through thinning layers of space dust to the mysteries of the surface below always had a healing effect on us, rather than the enraging one it appeared to have had on a lot of folks on the internet. Whatever our feelings, though, it feels safe to say that No Man's Sky carried a big lesson for other indie developers about the best way to handle hype.
It isn't entirely Hello Games' fault that the first trailer for No Man's Sky inspired so much unchecked imagination, but the subsequent year and a half of boundless optimism about what would be possible in this procedurally generated universe definitely looks like a cautionary tale in hindsight. However excited you are about your game, it's important to keep other people's expectations in check. It was only in the days immediately before the game arrived when Hello Games' Sean Murray did a last round of interviews and talked about how No Man's Sky was "a very chill game", "a niche game" and "maybe isn't the game you imagined from those trailers".
By then it was too late - the damage was done, and rather than blown minds, a legion of expectant fans ended up with blown fuses. We enjoyed that chill game, and we suspect that, had Hello Games had been clearer about what kind of game it was in the months before it came out, not just the last few minutes, we might have found more people sharing that perspective.
