Hello Games' planet-hopping exploration and survival gameNo Man’s Skyrecently saw a bump in popularity, even reaching the “Top Selling” list on Steam. Not because it received an update however;the most recent was “Beyond” last August. Rather because of an erotic fan fiction centered around the development studio’s founder Sean Murray unearthed for a video by the Internet Historian on YouTube.
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It chronicles the rocky development cycle for the game,No Man’s Skydismal reception when it launchedin 2016, and the concerted effort of Hello Games to fix it throughout the following years. All of which is told primarily through photoshopped facsimiles of the subjects in question with a hearty amount of jokes and memes.
Then, for dessert, the Internet Historian presents a dramatic reading of a NSFW fan fiction uploaded to Reddit four years ago called “My Evening Interview at Hello Games” by a user whose name should not be repeated in polite company.
Although anything particularly raunchy has been “redacted” in the video, the erotic near-propaganda for Hello Games is so over-the-top that even Internet Historian can’t hold back his laughter while reading it. The video quickly made its rounds, catching the attention of Murray himself on Thursday:
Scrolling through the developer’s Twitter feed shows him reacting with increasing horror as the video hits the trending page for YouTube Gaming. Yet he changes his tune upon being reminded of the old marketing adage that “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
The Internet Historian channel is well known for discussing other “major events” in gaming circles, such asthe controversies around Bethesda’sFallout 76. It has also uploaded dramatic readings of fan fictions before, including the infamousHarry Potter-focused “My Immortal.”
It was only a matter of time before those video styles collided, and Sean Murray just happened to have a perfect conduit hidden deep within the r/NoMansSkyTheGame subreddit. However, the fan fiction was clearly included out of love more than spite given how much Internet Historian leans into theNo Man’s Skyteam’s effort to continuallyadd content like taming alien animals.
Murray seems more than willing to get in on the fun, havingoffered studios like Bethesda advice based on his experiencesin the past. The bump in sales probably helps too.
No Man’s Skyis available now for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
