No Man's Sky dev shares another reminder of how hard game dev is: 20 different formats to balance, with 'around 140 combinations of graphics options' on PC

No Man's Sky engine programmer Martin Griffiths reveals the intricate platform combinatorics involved in optimizing the game across various platforms, showcasing the complexities behind game development and the extensive work required to ensure smooth gameplay experiences.

Nobody with sense is out here arguing that it's easy to make games, but sometimes the challenges and intricacies of game development aren't super visible or understandable. To put things into perspective, No Man's Sky engine programmer Martin Griffiths shared a version of the 20 "platform combinatorics" that Hello Games' open-world space sandbox currently supports, with a few caveats that ratchet it up further. 

First, here's the full list of formats, straight from a recent tweet from Griffiths: 

I'm assuming the Xbox One S and standard Xbox One are listed together because the hardware differences between them are so incredibly minor that there's no practical difference in optimization. As Griffiths notes, we're glossing over the notoriously branching settings and setups of PC gamers with a passing, 'yeah, it's on PC.' And that's still the simple version. 

"This is a simplified, graphics engine/platform-centric breakdown, not counting major systems like networking, input and audio…" Griffiths adds. "There are also many other integrated paths like HDR and dynamic res scaling (DRS) on console, GPU vendor specific optimizations on PC and foveated rendering for PSVR2. All of these, created and maintained in a single unified code base, by the systems and engine team at Hello Games." 

Griffiths regularly shares and discusses the ins and outs of game development using No Man's Sky as a lens. Some cases are pretty insular, like the No Man's Sky player whose bugged 611-hour save received special care or a showcase of the game's engine meant to demonstrate that it's not "smoke and mirrors" zooming around planets, while others are a bit more transferable. Wrangling PS5 Pro support, for instance, was difficult for a team of Hello Games' size, with Griffiths saying he himself spent "around 4-5 months of my time spread over the last year" tinkering with the console. 

He's done more than No Man's Sky, too: Griffiths previously shared prototype footage of the first Harry Potter open-world game - and explained its unlikely link to an iconic FPS.