Hello Games announced that its ambitious space simulator, No Man's Sky, will be available on iOS devices starting October 28. The port will include all previously released updates and is planned to run on devices as far back as the iPhone 11. Pre-orders are now open.
Studio co-founder Sean Murray stated that the mobile version represents a significant achievement, bringing "console quality visuals and gameplay that you can play anywhere." The game will support touch controls, as well as controllers, mice, and keyboards. Murray also indicated that optimizations made for the mobile version will benefit players across all platforms, including PC, PlayStation, Switch, and Xbox.
While the increasing power of mobile hardware has been a factor, Murray revealed that the development of Hello Games' upcoming title, Light No Fire, has directly contributed to the feasibility of the No Man's Sky mobile port. "Some of those changes have come from Light No Fire," Murray explained. "Things that we've been doing there where we've had to make things more performant, we're going, 'Oh, we can carry that across to all of this.' It's all one shared engine."
Light No Fire, revealed in 2023, is a cooperative adventure game set on a single, procedurally generated fantasy planet. Unlike No Man's Sky's focus on an infinite galaxy, Light No Fire centers on exploration without boundaries on one world. Murray recently suggested the game is progressing well, though he also acknowledged a lesson learned about discussing projects too early.