The Next Big Thing From Hello Games

General Discussion
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I’ve been saying for a while now that I believe Hello Game must have already started their next big project.

Well, in a recent interview in Eurogamer, Sean Murray has confirmed it:

“We’re doing Last Campfire as well, that’s an exciting thing, and we’re starting on something new as well - which is like a big, ambitious, silly thing. We won’t be talking about that for a long, long time - there’s a lot going on in the studio.”

So what’s it going to be? How do you follow on from No Man’s Sky? And what does “big, ambitious, and silly” mean? When you’ve done NMS, how much more ambitious can you get?

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I think they are going to do a proc-gen rpg. Real world size, continents, cities, deserts, jungles, forests - the whole bit. Like a shadowrun type thing - as far as tech and magic being hand in hand. Not cyberpunk, or steampunk, something with their own twist

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And what exactly are you basing that speculation on?

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I think (in a humble way) that No Man’s Sky can always get better. And will always get better.

Now we have the VR thing going on. For further ones (after beyond) we’ll probably get other updates with more Lore, more fauna, more plants, more planets, more ships, (dungeons for beyond?) new races?, more things going on.

A lots of things about the ARG are still remaning with no answer that could be introduced… the Lore needs more length , the space needs more dangers…

Bases will certainly also be improved with more spare parts etc etc. And what happends when you put No Man’s Sky running inside a PS5? Hehe guys, the console is coming soon and no one has ever talked about it, but hopefully there will also be something in No Man’s Sky to celebrate it. I trully trully love this game but I’m still thinking that we need MORE. Not just a new snappie or a moving rock…

Don’t get me wrong, I trully love this game,but still feels a little empty/easy for my own taste (and again don’t get me wrong, there’s already a bunch of things to do)… but please HG, give us a big enemy for example!

HG has come to a point today where their game is really becoming a super huge good hell of a game.

The only thing I would really like, is to make the story line a little bit more clearer and deeper. More Npc’s, more things going on, and less static dudes.

Very very happy to get Beyond in August, and my message was not to complain or hate the game, really not. I just imagine that No Man’s Sky can really really become a impressive game, even it is already impressing!

Oh and I was about to forget the most important!

IMG-20190406-WA0007
IMG-20190406-WA00071440×2560 471 KB

Got this big guy, especially and only for NMS!

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Being fair, yes, @SingularGleam is speculating. But it’s pretty well informed speculation.

Hello Games have learned an awful lot about procedural generation during their development of NMS. They’d be silly not to use that expertise, having worked so hard to acquire it. And much of the other stuff is solidly founded in feature people have requested for NMS - so HG know it’s stuff people want.

One thing that’s become clear from Sean Murray’s recent batch of media interviews, is that HG have treated all the feedback from NMS, both positive and negative, as a vast customer survey. It’s given them a huge information base to steer their future decisions. Again, they’d be silly not to use it, having paid so dearly to get it. :grinning:

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Well, the way I read the Eurogamer article, Sean was talking about a separate project - a big new game, different from No Man’s Sky.

I suppose you could read it that he’s talking about another NMS update, but I don’t think so.

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oh, my bad! I didn’t read the article! Well if it’s a new thing than I fear for NMS… don’t you?

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No, not necessarily. I mean, I don’t suppose HG can keep on improving NMS indefinitely, for free. They’ve always qualified their support for the game with statements like “we will continue to support the game for the foreseeable future”.

At some point, they have to either start charging for NMS updates, or they have to develop another game that brings in lots of money.

I would be a lot more worried about the future of NMS if Hello Games didn’t have a plan to make some money in the future.

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Sheer baseless speculation and hope

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To the point about money, SM did state that with NEXT, NMS sold as well as any AAA title. The same thing is expected to happen with BEYOND because of VR so I think we worry too much about HG. They are still making money from NMS.

The proc gen RPG sounds awesome but SM was asked specifically about it and he said he did not want to talk about something that does not exist…that could mean it is not happening or that they just have not created anything for it yet…

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Oh, I have no doubt that it will heavily feature procedural generation, but any assumptions about the exact nature of the game is pretty much wild guessing at this time, unless I missed something. Hence my question.

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Hello. I hope Hello Games and particularly Sean don’t stop developing for No Man’s Sky, it has so many, many possibilities. But it isn’t healthy for any team to work so intensely on any creative project for so long without standing back, taking a break and only then return to it, seeing things afresh.

Besides how can they also give up that amazing haunting classic soundtrack by 65 Days now? :smile: I know they won’t. I don’t think they could. They know exactly what kind of groundbreaking game they have. No Man’s Sky 2.0 - ‘Reborn’ will be great to look forward to in Ten years :wink:

In the meantime it’s worth starting a rumour or two to suggest I hope the NMS ARG might be something they’re exploring, more closely linked to an in game story. Maybe clues in the real world (or Virtual world) could lead to further clues or rewards in the game, that could then be found in the real world again! (Like a 3D printed space craft or something at a found map location)

Last year’s ARG threw up all kinds of ideas for the space game. I just hope they work on a really ground breaking science fiction story for the No Man’s Sky. That isn’t so obscure and has a larger audience appeal.

Maybe we could bump into VR Hollywood cameos unexpectedly live online. That could be very funny or very frightening. I hope funny because I love Hitchhikers characters :blush:

Well fingers crossed. What ever they do will be something to watch. But don’t give up on No Man’s Sky HG. Please don’t. :slight_smile:

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I think they made a LOT of money globally. Being such a small team maybe they don’t have to work again but do anything they want now. I don’t think they would ever forget No Man’s Sky. :slight_smile:

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They specifically said NMS is a big part of the studio going forward

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Yes, of course. Although I think we should allow for a little hyperbole on Mr Murray’s part

As has been pointed out in previous discussions, the company could probably survive for three or four years on what they have in the bank right now. Although, if they didn’t make more money in the meantime, at that point, they’d go bust.

My point was that they’re still giving their work away free to the majority of their customers, and they can’t continue to do so indefinitely. That being the case, they can’t continue to support NMS in the long term, unless they develop other income streams.

Which is, indeed, what they appear to be doing. So that’s good.

And that, really, is the essence of my original post. I didn’t believe the future of the company was sustainable, unless they started developing a big new game. And now we have evidence that that’s exactly what they’re doing.

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I don’t think they actually are “such a small team” any more. Back in 2016 they were. But not now.

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But they still work in Guildford… Lol

(Actually Guildford is very nice. I’ve been there :slight_smile: if anyone is living in Guildford is reading this, Sean?) *wipes brow…

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In a recent interview, if i remember correctly, he knew some information about google stadia but couldn’t say anything on it. Thats the upcoming streaming service from google that allows people to play games with the power of a super computer(if they want to)

I mean, think about it… Imagine you are Sean Murray. You have a passion for making big ambitious games that ypu nearly live for it. Then you learn about Google Stadia and realise, “I think we can make, like, a better procedurally generated game with this with much better graphics and we wouldn’t have to waste time with optimizations so much for such weak consoles, we can focus on putting out content much faster”.

Now, imagine you are an executive at Google trying to convince people to use Google Stadia’s powerfull game streaming service but most of the games currently making money out there are designed for consoles that people already have so who is going to want to pay for Stadia when there is little incentive? So you have to think of something bigger, an exclusive title, then Sean Murray passes you by and a light bulb turns on over your head.

And the two meet and google representative say, “heres money, make us a huge proc gen gaming world that only Stadia can handle.” And Sean Murray makes audible noises of excitement.

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Stadia is severely limited by internet speeds for most people, and data caps - I don’t see how it’s going to do all that well, but time will tell

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Certainly not something I will be able to make use of. I can barely get 1.5mbps and after 10 GB…it gets worse…:slightly_frowning_face:

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