8Bit/Digi

Like so many gamers, I have been waiting for No Man’s Sky all year and was finally excited to play it on my PC. However my experience of trying to play it on PC was not so steller and it’s a story that so many gamers could relate too.

Before anyone starts saying “your PC is weak,” here are a few quick note about it. My PC was custom built with a friends help with hardware bought from Fry’s and ClickAway on a $1100 budget. When asked how powerful I wanted it to be, the answer was “I want to play Crysis on high settings“.

Back to No Man’s Sky, I pre-ordered it on Steam on August 2 and was excited to explore the galaxy. However there was the delay to August 12 for PC gamers, which was no big deal since it just gave Hello Games more time to work out the bugs.

Then came August 12 at midnight and I was ready to install it when I’m told I have to wait till 10:00 am to install it (a little frustrating but I could wait a little longer). Next morning I’m ready to play it but I encounter another roadblock, it keeps crashing every time I start it.

I start the game, the typical  developer logo’s appear and then it exists out. I try to play it three times before re-installing the game (which did nothing). I figure maybe it has a minor glitch and Hello Games will release a patch soon.

I come home at around 9:20pm and sure enough Steam starts updating the game. However when I try to play No Man’s Sky, it still crashes at the start-up. I go to a Steam forum to see what’s the issue only to find over 300 pages of people replying “same”.

Finally I decide to do the right thing, return the game and get my money back so I can buy No Man’s Sky for the PS4. Steam refunds me the very next morning and I purchase the game through PlayStation Network.

Thankfully this story has a happy ending as I finally got to play No Man’s Sky on Saturday night for three hours and it was fun. So despite the annoying hassle, it was worth the wait.

What was your experience with trying to play No Man’s Sky on PC? Share your story in the comment section below. Review of No Man’s Sky will be available on Wednesday.