After five years, No Man's Sky has finally hit "mostly positive" reviews on Steam Eurogamer.net If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. After five years, No Man's Sky has finally hit "mostly positive" reviews on Steam Star buy. News by Tom Phillips Deputy Editor Updated on 7 Sep 2021 32 comments Five years after its launch disaster, No Man's Sky has finally earned all-time positive user recognition on Steam. The game's all-time Steam user review average has now ticked over into the "Mostly Positive" category, after starting at "Overwhelmingly Negative". Developer Hello Games noted the milestone had been reached following the arrival of Frontiers, the game's latest expansion released last week, and shared an insight into how Steam's review metrics actually work. Watch on YouTube Moving from "Overwhelmingly Negative" to "Mixed", Steam's so-so middleground for games, took two years, Hello Games said. Moving just one stage further now to "Mostly Positive" has taken three years more. "Each percentage point becomes exponentially harder to earn as you move up the ratings," Hello Games' Tim Woodley said. "Moving from 20 percent positive to 21 percent positive may only require a few hundred positive reviews whereas moving from 69 percent to 70 percent needed 10,000 positive reviews. This is why it's so rare for games to change their All-Time rating and why we'd assumed that we might never be able to." Of course, Steam reviews are just a guideline, and subject to frequent manipulation by users who object to certain updates or wish to highlight current community discontent. This is why Steam now splits "all-time" and "recent" reviews, to highlight both shorter and longer-term sentiment. But, for developers, it's clearly still important, as Woodley concludes: "In some ways it's easy to dismiss Steam reviews, it's a bit of meme to share the silly ones, but as a developer they are undeniably meaningful. For five years now if someone bought No Man's Sky they had to do it in spite of a red or yellow warning symbol beside our name (and affecting the likelihood algorithm in charge of displaying the name in the first place)." If you missed it, Frontiers now lets you govern and grow your own No Man's Sky version of Mos Eisley on various planets. It is the game's 17th major update since launch. Become a Eurogamer subscriber and get your first month for £1 Get your first month for £1 (normally £3.99) when you buy a Standard Eurogamer subscription. Enjoy ad-free browsing, merch discounts, our monthly letter from the editor, and show your support with a supporter-exclusive comment flair! Support us View supporter archive More News Google announces cloud gaming Chromebooks less than a fortnight after Stadia shutdown GeForce Now preinstalled. 4 Atari will hold RollerCoaster Tycoon rights for another decade Ups and downs. 7 Lady Dimitrescu will be a tad smaller in Resident Evil Village's Mercenaries DLC Level the playing field. 1 Overwatch 2 suffers another DDoS attack and character roster bugs Mei Mei. 13 Latest Articles Digital Foundry Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: a new level in graphics performance The Digital Foundry video review - and how the new GPU champion delivers for 4K 120fps gaming. Google announces cloud gaming Chromebooks less than a fortnight after Stadia shutdown GeForce Now preinstalled. 4 Feature Evercore Heroes wants to wind people up the right way "There's less rage at them, because they didn't end your fun." Genshin Impact Path of Gleaming Jade dates, login event rewards Including other anniversary rewards and how to claim them. Supporters Only Premium only Off Topic: Take a minute to appreciate Cookin' with Coolio's incredible scallops recipe. What a great book. Premium only Off Topic: Reading City of Glass in comic form "Where exactly am I going?" Premium only Off Topic: Il Buco is a transporting film about a really big hole Underlands. Off-Topic Netflix handled Sandman brilliantly It was Dreamy. 9 Buy things with globes on them And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store! Explore our store