No Man's Sky has just released a major update with VR, expanded multiplayer, and its version of Stardew Valley. You can extract milk and eggs from alien creatures or ride them. There is also automated resource extraction which is similar to an extremely limited version of Factorio. The multiplayer introduces a social hub and multiplayer missions. It has certainly come a long way since it became available in Early Access.
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However, most games amount to x stuff so you can x more stuff. Most games suffer from doing repetitive actions like killing npcs so you can get better loot to kill more npcs.
If you call a game that should have been in Early Access instead of released in August 2016 a scam, then it is still active and deserves a second look.
There has been 7 free major updates that have made up for its abysmal launch.
The Foundation update was released in November 2016 and included base building, freighters, and added Survival and Creative mode.
The Pathfinder update was released in March 2017 and included Permadeath mode, 3 new vehicles, owning more than one starship, sharing bases online, and creating races for your friends to enjoy.
The Atlas Rising update was released in August 2017 and included an actual story arc, procedural missions, and terrain editing.
The NEXT update was released in July 2018 and included actual multiplayer, owning multiple bases, their version of the duty officer system that sends frigates on expeditions, community events, and being able to customize your character.
The Abyss update was released in October 2018 and included underwater bases, underwater exploration, a submarine, and underwater missions.
The Visions update was released in November 2018 and included new weird worlds, paleontology, weird creatures like an alien creature that is a bubble half full of blood, sentient minerals, and more hazardous plants.
There is no way that you can compare No Man's Sky in August 2016 to the current No Man's Sky.
In other words, it was in a worse state than No Man's Sky at the same point. I actually dropped the game and didn't come back until the Season 3 Update. It was like a completely different game. Even moreso now. I can accept that NMS has made that same transformation.
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
And this is why I have respect for Sean Murray and Hello Games. They could have washed their hands clean of their mess, but they have worked for 3 years to create a decent game from their dumpster fire.
With modern games, they get updated over the years. So only things that were promised at launch would be a scam not things that were promised with no specific date mentioned. Permadeath and Survival modes provide choices to the player. If you don't like something in a game, then there is no need to play that part of the game.
Any No Man's Sky interview I have seen is an interviewer asking if the game will have a specific feature not that the feature would be available at launch. The videos were deceptive with their huge creatures, but it is not the first time that a video promised more than we get.
A scam requires intentional deception. If Sean Murray mentioned a bunch of features, but never intended to deliver his promises, then NMS is a scam. However, reality sometimes gets in the way of promises by making the features unfeasible or takes too long for it to be implemented. It seems like Sean Murray suffered from the same problem that Cryptic had in the first year of STO when they were far more vocal with the community about what features they were working on with their Engineering Reports. Sometimes planned features become unfeasible and scrapped or delayed. This lead to people saying that Cryptic lied to us because we are not getting this feature.
Then there is the problem of getting a fixed release date forced on them by Sony. People are far more forgiving of video games if they are in Early Access rather than launched. If NMS came out as an Early Access game, then it wouldn't have any of the problems that it had at launch. People might have issue with a $60 Early Access game, but nowhere near the rage that NMS caused. Sony is likely responsible for pushing NMS being multiplayer since there is the outsidexbox video from 2013 that mentions there won't be multiplayer, but other players can see the effect of you plundering the resources of a plant that you initially visited. So the most that can be said unless proven otherwise is that Sean Murray was too talkative about features that he planned on adding to his game, but either wasn't able to due to how difficult it was or had to implement it after launch. Considering how much NMS has improved over the years, I seriously doubt that Sean Murray had intentionally deceived anyone and learned the lesson that STO devs learned about not talking about features that aren't ready.
You might be thinking of a different Youtube channel since I have never seen Outside Xtra talking about NMS. It might be in one of their 7 Games that X videos. No Man's Sky was mentioned in Outside Xbox's "7 Ambitious Games That Were Too Ambitious For Their Own Good", "No Man's Sky Next Gameplay: Let's Play No Man's Sky Next on Xbox One (Sponsored Content)", "Show of the Week: No Man’s Sky and Andy’s 5-Star Space Resort Challenge", and "No Man's Sky: What Even Is It and Why Should You Be Excited?" which came out in December 2013.
Technically XCOM has permadeath, but as that is a turn based strategy its a bit different. Its not the player that dies, its the units under the player's command. And unless you play in Ironman mode, its easy to just revert to a previous save if you don't want to lose a soldier.
I am not aware of any Kickstarter or crowdfunding campaign for No Man's Sky. It is possible that NMS negatively affected Kickstarter due to people realizing that video game companies won't always deliver what they promise at launch.