Screenshot from No Man’s Sky. Image: Hello Games
In what looks like a classic case of a breached Twitter account, Hello Games – the developer of No Man’s Sky – tweeted out ‘No Man’s Sky was a mistake’, before being quickly taken down.
Despite being one of the most hyped games of recent memory, No Man’s Sky, with its promises of 18 quintillion planets to explore, did little to win over the hundreds of thousands of players who found the game severely lacking in content.
While the game’s lead developer, Irishman Sean Murray, showcased videos of incredible planets and space battles, the reality was that the small independent gaming studio could not produce a triple A blockbuster title.
In the weeks that followed its release – already delayed by over a month – the number of players fell dramatically, with only a few hundred now playing at any given time.
Its players have also taken issue with the lack of frequent Twitter updates from Hello Games, and in particular, Sean Murray, who has not tweeted from his own account since the game launched in August.
With this in mind, a new tweet that appeared on the Hello Games Twitter account that simply said, “No Man’s Sky was a mistake”, has caused quite the stir both for the developer and its 150,000 followers.
Screenshot of the now deleted Hello Games tweet.
Believing it to be a tweet admitting defeat in trying to fix the remaining issues with the game, fans of the space adventure game came to its defence, while others took the opportunity to voice their dislike.
As quickly as it went up, however, it was deleted from the account, with Hello Games now showing as private – meaning it blocks any accounts not already following it from gaining access.
While Hello Games have yet to say anything on the tweet, the actions it took suggest that it was likely the result of someone outside of the company gaining access to the account.
No Man’s Sky is currently under investigation from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK after “several complaints” of misleading advertising were filed against the developers.
Updated, 3.45pm, 28 October 2016:
So things have taken a strange turn, with the latest reports suggesting that no hack of the Hello Games account took place. A rather conflicting statement from a person purporting to be Sean Murray suggests it came from within Hello Games itself.
In an email to Polygon, a message from Murray’s personal email account said: “The tweet is from me, but somebody from the team took it down. We have not been coping well.”
However, in another email to Mashable, the same account said: “The tweet came from a disgruntled employee. We’re currently trying to solve the issue internally.”
Another considerable update is that Murray’s own Twitter account has tweeted for the first time in months, with two tweets that would strongly suggest his personal security has been compromised.
Two tweets from Sean Murray’s account. 2FA refers to two-factor authentication.
