No Man’s Sky Dev Praises Xbox One X

One of the developers behind the deep space action-adventure survival game No Man’s Sky has recently offered words of praise for Xbox One X, the mid-generation console that fell in between Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S. While No Man’s Sky was originally released for PlayStation 4 and PC, at least one member of its development team seems smitten with the surprising longevity of the Xbox One X.

The release of the Xbox One X came just over seven years ago, on November 7, 2017. Arriving nearly four years after the original Xbox One and three years before the current generation of Xbox consoles, the Xbox One X originally retailed at $499 and provided a variety of upgrades over the standard Xbox One. These upgrades included a 6 teraflop GPU and 12 GB of memory, all packed compactly into a much smaller casing than most previous Xbox consoles.

While not as powerful as the current generation of consoles, it sounds as though the Xbox One X can still hold its own weight among some popular older games that are still receiving updates. Hello Games’ Martin Griffiths, who has been providing engine programming for No Man’s Sky, recently praised the seven-year-old console via his Twitter account. According to Griffiths’s post, the development team has enabled almost every feature in the Xbox Series X|S version of the game to also run on Xbox One X, stating that the screen space reflections that provide water — or other large bodies of interplanetary liquid — with a reflective surface have recently been enabled.

No Man’s Sky is Practically the Same on Xbox One X and Xbox Series X|S

The timing of Griffiths’ comment is notable, as Sony has recently released the PlayStation 5 Pro, its own mid-generation upgrade of the standard PlayStation 5. The PS5 Pro console first became available on November 7, 2024, providing a number of upgrades over its predecessor, including a 45 percent faster GPU and advanced ray tracing. While the PS5 Pro can provide boosted performance for practically any game, developers from around the industry have taken advantage of the opportunity presented by the powerful new hardware, and more than 50 games had been announced to be optimized for the PS5 Pro by the time of its launch, including No Man’s Sky.

No Man’s Sky has a special PS5 Pro feature shared by only two other games optimized for the new console so far, having an option to be displayed in 8k resolution, the industry’s current pinnacle. The hardware can support the game at 8k when running at 30 frames per second, though a 4k resolution is also available for those that demand a 60 fps performance. While that’s one feature that the Xbox One X can’t support, Griffiths’ comment provides perspective on how a mid-generation console can provide some extra longevity to long-lasting games like No Man’s Sky.

Lose yourself in a vast sci-fi odyssey as you explore a near-infinite, procedurally generated universe.Set out from the edge of the Euclid galaxy and carve out your own interstellar existence in a vast universe teeming with life, danger and near-endless mystery.No Man’s Sky is a hugely-ambitious, heavily-stylised, sci-fi adventure that spans entire galaxies all brought to life with procedural generation. Travel through an endless array of increasingly diverse and dangerous star systems, prospecting for rare materials, trading with alien life, populate planets and searching for clues to the meaning of the universe’s mysterious existence.How you survive is up to you. Assemble entire fleets of dreadnought-class freighters and tear across the universe; build sprawling habitable bases across planet surfaces, beneath the ground or under the ocean; buy and upgrade your own weapons and star ships and do battle with outlaw space pirates, hostile alien fauna or the mysterious sentinel fleets.  The universe is yours to explore – trillions upon trillions of planets, waiting to be discovered.

Released

August 9, 2016

Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer , Online Co-Op

Engine

Proprietary

ESRB

T for Teen: Fantasy Violence, Animated Blood

How Long To Beat

30.5 Hours

How Long To Beat (Completionist Runs)

150 hours

Steam Deck Compatibility

Verified

X|S Optimized

Yes

PS Plus Availability

N/A

Supported VR Headsets

Sony PlayStation VR , Sony PlayStation VR2 , Valve Index , HP Reverb G2 , HTC Vive Pro 2 , HTC VIVE Cosmos , Meta Quest 3 , Meta Quest 2 , Meta Quest Pro

File Size Xbox Series

20.36 GB (September 2024)

OpenCritic Rating

Fair

Cross-Platform Play

PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC

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