No Man’s Sky being investigated for false advertising

No Man’s Sky was one of the most anticipated games of 2016. But when it was finally released, it was met with more complaints than praise — and now those complaints have been formalized.

Hello Games and Valve, the masterminds behind one of the most hyped games in recent memory, are being investigated by the UK-based Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after Reddit user AzzerUK filed a formal complaint for the false advertising of No Man’s Sky.

“I can’t speak about other countries, but in the UK [there] are regulations about providing advertising material that could mislead a consumer in some way — e.g. displaying things that do not, in fact, exist,” AzzerUK states on his or her Reddit page. “The ASA say they have received a number of complaints.”

Indeed, Sean Murray — the creator and head of Hello Games — has gotten a lot of pushback from the gaming community ever since the game was officially released to the public. People have painstakingly made comparisons to pre-release screenshots and demos of the game, revealing many differences between what was promised and what was given. Others have combed through Murray’s pre-release interviews to pull out both game mechanics and content he had discussed, but that were not present in the game.

Reddit user AzzerUK has compiled a list of the most common complaints on his or her Reddit page, broken down into the categories of video, screenshots, and the game’s Steam store page. Some of the complaints listed include differences in user interface design, ship flying behavior, large-scale space combat, size of creatures, and the behavior of ships and sentinels.

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While the ASA cannot interpret or enforce legislation, it can ask Hello Games and Valve to remove and seize to use any advertising materials which contain the misleading information.

Do you feel that No Man’s Sky warrants this type of investigation? Let us know in the comments below.