BeforeStarfield, there wasNo Man’s Sky. The universe exploration title from Hello Games went through a tumultuous launch, but is celebrated these days. In fact, it looks as though it’s experiencing its biggest uptick in a while.

According to a recent tweet from the developer’s ownSean Murray,No Man’s Skyis “having its biggest month in the last few years,” with this message being accompanied by a flexing arm emoji.

No Man’s Sky: a huge freighter bathed in orange as it hovers in the space.

A quick look onSteamDBdoes indeed show that things have been looking up, particularly over the last couple of weeks, based on the lifetime player count chart.

Reasons for this are likely varied

There are lots of reason why a game would experience a burst in popularity. In the case ofNo Man’s Sky, it could be down to the recentECHOES updatethat added mechanical lifeforms to the game.

It could also be down to a very recentexperimental buildthat’s been sent out to PC. Hello Games is nothing if not persistent in keeping its at once hyped sci-fi release in good standing, with plenty of patches and new content.

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However, perhaps you’re thinking what some of us are thinking. Could the game experiencing one of its best months in years be down to the release ofStarfield? It would certainly be crass to suggest it’s a major factor inNo Man’s Sky‘s recent popularity.

However, given that comparisons will no doubt have been drawn between this game and Bethesda’s new sci-fi RPG, it’s not too much of a stretch to think that space exploration is on a lot of gamer’s minds right now. In which case, to paraphrase Dr Zoidberg: why notNo Man’s Sky?

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