No Man's Sky: updates for Switch and Steam Deck require 2-3x more engineering time

Martin Griffiths' recording shows that updates on Switch/Steam Deck require 2-3x more engineering time, impacting No Man's Sky's pace.

Updates on Switch and Steam Deck require more engineering time

Martin Griffiths, engine engineer for No Man's Sky, revealed that keeping the game running with quality on handheld platforms requires a disproportionate effort from the team with every new update.

The extra cost per update

According to him, both the Switch (versions 1 and 2) and the Steam Deck require 2-3x more engineering time for new features to work with the same level of quality as other platforms (PC/Mac and consoles).

Production context

No Man's Sky has released over 40 major updates since launch, with 14 of them in the last two years. Even with this pace, the team remains small to cover multiple platforms, maintaining the same set of features and parity between handhelds, PC, and consoles.

What recent updates brought

The Worlds Part 1 and Worlds Part 2 updates rebuilt part of the game's universe, adding billions of planets and visual improvements. The Voyagers update overhauled ship building and reportedly increased the number of active players. The Xeno Arena transformed the alien capturing experience, sparking comparisons to the Pokémon theme.

The technical challenge of handhelds

Each update must be ported, tested, and optimized separately for Switch 1, Switch 2, and Steam Deck. As the hardware architectures of these platforms differ significantly enough from PC and consoles, the engineering work ends up being performed at least twice per update.

Balancing team and ambition

Hello Games operates leanly. Although it has grown since launch, it remains smaller than many studios that release games on several platforms at the same time. Maintaining support for handhelds with feature parity demonstrates a clear commitment to these players.

What lies ahead

With Light No Fire in development and No Man's Sky approaching its tenth anniversary, the question is how long the developer will be able to sustain this pace across multiple platforms. For now, handheld users receive the same updates as everyone else, which is a feat that requires considerable effort.

We want to know your opinion: do you think this extra work to keep handheld platforms up to date is worth the development cost? Leave your comment below and join the conversation.

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