No Man's Sky was almost cancelled
Not only does it contain an almost countless number of planets and creatures in a universe that you would never be done exploring but it was also created by a small team of just 12 people on a relatively low budget in the UK.
Hello Games had only previously released Joe Danger and Joe Danger 2, enjoyable enough titles but nothing on the scope and scale of what is being planned with No Man's Sky. And it almost didn't happen.
In a wide ranging interview with IGN, Irish fella and company founder/game director Sean Murray talked about how a terrible flood on Christmas Eve 2013 essentially wiped out the entire company offices in Guildford and how moving forward seemed impossible at the time.
"It was Christmas Eve and we were all off from work and the whole office flooded. I think we hadn't announced the game because I nearly backed out of [VGX 2013]. I think we might have just canned No Man's Sky because we would have been feeling really unsure it. When we were trying to back out of it, we were like what have we been doing?!"
Comments about the flooding start around the 52 minute mark.
It's interesting to hear how Murray sees it as a positive event in retrospect, as something which really brought the team together and made them double down on creating the game properly. The move came right after an important first showing for the game, which gave them a little confidence to move forward.
So it could have died on the vine almost three years ago. Instead we find ourselves almost ready to experience what this massively ambitious game has to offer.
No Man's Sky comes out on the 21st of June, 2016.
