Hello Games won't even tell Colbert when No Man's Sky is out

No Man's Sky Stephen Colbert

"I thought Morgan Freeman was God," Stephen Colbert told Sean Murray last Friday, You're actually my second God."

My favourite thing about Sean Murray's appearance on The Late Show is that Stephen Colbert has clearly done his research. I know it's a presenter's job to know enough about their guest's work to have a proper conversation, but I've seen and heard and read so many people try to talk about games without much knowledge to back it up that I get a little apprehensive when I hear about video games being discussed in a non-gaming context. So Colbert's leading questions are a welcome change:

"By entire universe," He asks, "Do you mean something the size of... the universe?"

Here are some new things I learned from watching the eight minutes of footage available on YouTube:

  • Hello Games created a new periodic table for the game that has "oxycen" instead of oxygen (is oxygen trademarked?).
  • Spaceships heat up as they enter the atmosphere.
  • You can point something that looks like a gun at animals to name them, and you get money for doing so.
  • You can walk around underwater.
  • The only way to know what your avatar looks like is for somebody else to see you, though the chance of running into somebody else is very rare.

Worth a watch for Sean Murray naming a solar system after Stephen Colbert, and for the bit where the audience gets the scope of what Hello Games is doing with No Man's Sky and applauds.