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No Man's Sky dev fixed one fan's 611-hour save because 'when a player has put that much into our game it deserves the engineering fix'
A No Man's Sky engine programmer fixed a game-breaking visual bug in a player's 600+ hour save, demonstrating Hello Games' dedication to fixing bugs, especially for players with significant playtime, and showcasing the complexity of maintaining such a vast and constantly evolving game.
No Man's Sky engine programmer Martin Griffiths recently fixed a game-breaking visual bug found in a fan's 600+ hour save - and it was well worth the extra time to him, considering the player's own investment in the ever-expanding space game.
As Griffiths describes in his post on the afflicted "611-hour save," helping fix bugs for such devoted players is a priority for Hello Games: "Although every bug is important we can’t help but take extra time when the save is in the hundreds or thousands of hours - I think the record is over 4000 hours…" He then delves into the details about the more recent save he fixed, saying it "reproduced a flickering bug that has been reported half a dozen times on my posts here."
One of the most humbling things about being an engine and platform engineer on #NoMansSky is receiving a save-game demonstrating a bug submitted to Zen-desk (verified through QA as reproducible) with instructions on how it occurs, and then helping fix it:Although every bug is…October 25, 2024
Upon receiving the player's file, Griffiths promised "that I will hawk that bug and fix it" - as "when a player has put that much into our game it deserves the engineering fix," which "then trickles down to all our future long term players." With so many platform combinations, too, things can get a bit hectic, though - as the developer puts it, "the complexity is mad, so trust that we will fix everything we can."
Here s a video of the 600+ hour save that showed the horrible flickering. I’ve debugged the issue and have submitted a fix. pic.twitter.com/3b6ut3c9wxOctober 26, 2024
There's thankfully a happy ending for the 611-hour save in question, with Griffiths sharing a before and after clip showcasing the visual bug as well as the game running following Hello Games' fix for it. The first video highlights the "horrible flickering" with the second showing "the same location and save running with the fix." It also seems that the dev's earlier message about how a bug fix "trickles down" is ringing true, too.
The same location and save running with the fix - flicker is gone and since it was a general engine bug/limit being reached it’ll probably help other large bases that had this issue on Xbox. pic.twitter.com/HvJ22UwPIpOctober 26, 2024
Not only is the flicker gone, but "since it was a general engine bug/limit being reached it’ll probably help other large bases that had this issue on Xbox." While I haven't run into the problem while playing myself, I can't imagine losing hundreds or thousands of hours to a bug - I'm just happy to see the devs also understand what a loss like that would feel like. As one fan writes in a comment on Griffiths' thread, "Mad respect for the dedication."